Unequivocally Unusual
by Quantum Cat
Summary: Circumstance victimizes Harry one more time, as both Hermione and Ron are petrified during second year. Of course, coincidence just happens to pitch in as well. "Figglenorf got your tongue?"
1. Chapter 1: Snakes and Figglenorfs

**Chapter 1**

"Don't you worry, mate. We'll be back before you know it!" Ron said.

He then thumped Harry on the back on what was probably supposed to be a reassuring manner and then chased off after Hermione, who was heading to the library. The muggleborn was acting oddly since Harry had just heard that mysterious voice again, but there was little he could do to puzzle that out so close to the Quidditch match.

Privately, he couldn't help but feel a bit miffed that Ron, the ever-loving Quidditch fanatic, had just up and ditched him so close to the match.

Looking to the sky, and noticing the dark clouds of an oncoming storm, the boy resumed his walk to the pitch. He resolved to end the game as soon as possible, because like hell was he going to fly in another storm. But try as he might to focus on the upcoming game, his thoughts kept drifting back to his two friends.

Maybe he should let one of the staff know about the errant two? The school _was_ pretty deserted now, so anyone left in the castle would be all the more noticeable, especially to an ancient and vicious monster. The idea left a bad taste in his mouth though. Harry trusted Hermione far more than he was willing to trust the staff lately, so alerting them probably wouldn't do his worries any good. Besides, she was Hermione. The girl could probably spell her way through walls if given the motivation.

Shaking his head to clear away the thoughts, Harry entered the Gryffindor changing room and switched into his gear. The stuff was rather bulky, especially for him and his shorter than average height, so much so that Harry was sure that he weighed at least ten to fifteen pounds more than usual. Harry wished that Featherlight charms weren't forbidden in Quidditch.

After changing and grabbing his broom, Harry left for the next room, where Fred and George Weasley were already waiting. Nodding to them, but not saying anything, Harry began to ponder the goings on of events lately.

A few moments later, Wood entered. There was a seriousness in his face that would have given anyone pause if the matter weren't a game between school children. As it was, he just seemed to be working on getting forehead wrinkles before twenty.

"Ready, you guys?" He asked. "We win this mat-"

"Relax Woody," Fred said, heading him off. "With the His Royal Slytherinness on the team, Hufflepuff won't even get off the ground before the game's over."

Wood gave the the twin a disapproving look, but remained quiet after that. Even he could tell when someone didn't want to put up with one of his speeches.

George grinned and stuck his tongue out.

Soon the rest of the team arrived, with Katie, Alicia, and Angelina smiling nervously but none worse for the wear.

Shaken from his daydreaming at their arrival, Harry began the usual final double check of his gear, his mind whirling with all sorts of uncomfortable scenarios of the near future. Quidditch, while incredible and exhilarating in a way Harry had difficulty replicating elsewhere, could be quite dangerous. Maybe that was part of why he loved it so much.

The seven Gryffindors looked at each other, determination shining on their faces. If nothing else, Harry thought, at least they were still the best team at Hogwarts. The thought did little for his mood

"Okay, well come on we've got to go," Wood said stiffly.

As they made their way to the middle of the field, Harry's thoughts went back to his friends.

He mounted his broom and began to hover as the team captains shook each others hands. Unlike the Slytherin captain, Marcus Flint, Cedric Diggory was a well built teenager with a perpetual 'pleased-to-meet-you-mate' look on his face all the time. He was tall but he wasn't huge like Crabbe and Goyle. Harry didn't know him very well but according to some girls he was "the most handsome, caring, athletic, and heartwarming person ever to grace Hogwarts with his presence."

Harry didn't know what to make of such a rumor but he didn't think he was a bad person if that's what some people thought.

_'But then again, maybe he's really the Heir of Slytherin and he's just posing as Cedric Diggory, the pleasant and good-looking Hufflepuff.'_

Harry's second year at Hogwarts wasn't proving to be nearly as good as his first. The constant whispering and murmurs whenever he walked down the hall or entered a classroom had given him a sense of paranoia that chose random and sometimes unfortunate situations to manifest itself.

Madam Hooch put her hands on the chest containing the enchanted balls used for the game.

"Ready?" She said as the players flew to their proper starting positions. The crowd began cheering even more loudly. Harry grinned, despite himself. Somethings will never change, Chamber of Secrets or not.

"Set?" Damn, the rain was starting.

"GO!" The balls flew out of the chest with the force of a cannon. The game had begun.

Lee Jordan could be heard commentating the match, but it all sounded like gibberish to Harry as he had taken to go around the field on his Nimbus as fast as he could in search of the Snitch. The wind roaring in his ear was making all the noise jumble up and be incomprehensible to him. Even the magical loudspeaker was a bit muffled.

As he swerved out of the way of an incoming Bludger, he caught a glimpse of gold but it was gone before he could confirm it.

"STOP THE GAME! STOP! STOP!"

Harry came to such a sudden halt when he heard McGonagall's voice, that he almost flew off the broom from the sudden loss of momentum.

He looked down at the field. Professor Mcgonagall had in her hand what looked like a muggle megaphone and was quickly trading words with a very grim looking Madam Hooch. He felt a painful knot form in his stomach.

His paranoia begun to whisper in his ear, but Harry ignored it in favor of getting the truth

Suddenly, Mcgonagall turned to the stands began firing off instructions like a machine gun.

"ALL STUDENTS ARE TO REPORT TO THEIR RESPECTIVE COMMON ROOMS AND AND HEAD OF HOUSE IMMEDIATELY! ANY STUDENT CAUGHT OUT AFTER CURFEW WILL BE HARSHLY PUNISHED! THERE WILL BE NO MORE QUIDDITCH UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!"

Harry felt his blood run cold as he descended onto the ground, and began walking towards the crowd of Gryffindor students. He didn't think McGonagall would put up with the teams needing to change. He wasn't feeling like wasting time either. He needed to find Ron and Hermione and figure out what was happening.

"Mr. Potter?" Someone said from behind. Turning around, he came face to face with Madam Hooch.

"Yes?" He answered cautiously. The old hawk's face was set grimly, her visage one of pity.

"I think it'd be best if you went with Messrs Weasley and Weasley to the Infirmary."

That all but confirmed Harry's earlier suspicion, but still he persevered in his denial.

"What do you mean?" Harry questioned, "We aren't injured."

Hooch let out a small sigh. "Your friends, Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger-"

Oh sod it all.

Harry didn't hear any more. He had started running as soon as he heard his redheaded friend's first name. Pushing students of various years and houses out of the way, he exited the pitch and continued on his path to the castle.

The ground was bumpy, but even so he didn't lose his balance. Sweat trickled down his face, and his robes clung to his skin, but he was not bothered. He was still wearing his Quidditch robes and they were weighing him down but the thought of taking them off so he could go faster didn't even cross his mind.

He was currently running up the stairs to the second floor when all of a sudden, his foot gave out and he tripped. Hitting his face on the stairs, he became faintly aware of an extremely sharp pain in the middle of his face, and he felt the taste of blood on his lips. He vaguely recognized it as a bloody nose like when he was younger.

Getting up and composing himself as best and fast as he could, Harry began running once again, paying no mind to the glares from the students that hadn't left the castle to begin with. A beastly feeling rose up in his chest at the sight of them, and for the first time Harry wished that it was someone else to suffer the misfortune of Slytherin's monster.

Finally, he arrived at the hospital wing. To Harry, it had been an eternity of running, when in fact it had been ten minutes. Still, his body was finally calming down and the adrenaline rush was receding, making Harry more than aware of the pain in his nose.

Hoping against hope that it was all a sick and twisted joke, Harry slowly but surely opened the door to Madam Pomfrey's domain.

Taking slow and deep breaths in preparation for what he was about to see, he began walking to the quarantined area of the miniature hospital; this was where students with severe medical issues were interned, and it was also where the petrified victims were staying until they were cured.

_'If they get cured,' _that nasty side of him pointed out.

He passed all the older patients, each separated by curtains held up by nothing. Once he reached Nearly Headless Nick, he took a deep breath and forced himself to continue.

It was strange. Though they looked like Ron Hermione, Harry could tell that the two on those beds weren't his friends. They were just shells. their essence seemed to have been sucked right out of them, leaving behind these hollow creatures that seemed neither dead nor alive.

...It hadn't even been an five minutes and already he missed them.

He stayed like that for what felt like hours. People came in and out of the Hospital Wing, but none of them gave Harry much regard aside from Madam Pomfrey who insisted that she mended his nose. He vaguely recalled Fred and George standing there without saying a word and Ginny quietly sobbing before being given a Calming Draught.

Harry thought he felt tears pricking at the corner of his eyes for a bit, but he crushed the urge viciously. That never got him anywhere before, and it sure as hell wouldn't do anything for him now.

He, Ron, and Hermione had always been together since the mountain troll incident. They had been through so much, gone through trials no normal person should face, and now...they were...gone.

How was he to find the Heir of Slytherin by himself? What was he going to do to stop the attacks? How could he find the Chamber of Secrets alone? He wished he had Hermione's brain or Ron's easygoing attitude, at least then he'd be able to think clearly or remain more in control of himself.

Harry winced at his train of thought. Even to himself, that sounded like he valued their abilities rather than the people themselves. What kind of person did that?

Eventually Professor McGonagall came by to escort him to Gryffindor Tower. She explained the new rules regarding curfew and such but Harry was barely listening. Not that he imagined the older witch could fault him for that.

And once he arrived at Gryffindor Tower, showered, and then just spent hours staring into the fireplace, the single most important question was:

"What now?"

* * *

Harry slept horribly that night. He kept seeing his best friends running down a never-ending hallway being chased by a large shadow. He tried to reach them but every time he got close they pulled back and went in the other direction towards the shadow which almost always nearly caught them each time as they passed by. And every time he spoke, nothing but abnormal hissing would leave his throat.

Throwing off his covers, Harry got up and looked over at Ron's bed. Harry never realized how out of place it would be without the redheaded boy's snoring in the morning. Now he wished he could hear the accursed sounds.

After putting on his robes, Harry checked his watch and noticed that breakfast was set to begin, based on what his Head of House told him last not.

_'Guess the saying really is true,_' he thought sadly as he noticed the lack of Hermione studying like she always did on Sunday mornings._ 'You don't miss it till it's gone._'

Leaving the dorm, it didn't take long for Harry to notice the almost animal-like intensity everyone seemed to be looking at him with. The unblinking stares unsettled him and he frankly didn't want to be their center of attention any longer. Sitting on the windowsill overlooking the grounds, Harry pointedly avoided meeting anyone's gaze as they waited for their escort.

Had it always been this bad, he wondered? Did his friends really bear the brunt of the animosity that much or did it just get worse overnight? He was uncertain as to which was the case, which only served to annoy him more. Put one of them in his spot, he thought, and see how they performed.

Fortunately, Professor McGonagall arrived to pick everyone up not even five minutes of his arrival. After sending a few students to wrangle up any stragglers that were still sleeping, the Transfigurations teacher led them outside the Common Room, into the seventh floor hallway.

From his vantage point in the back, Harry saw the Professor waving her wand to and fro in front of the Fat Lady's portrait, muttering something under her breath. Ah, right, there were still those students who didn't want to leave the Tower just yet, so it only made sense to seal the entry way. Both to keep intruders out, and probably even more important to keep students in.

The trip down to the Great Hall was passed in relative silence. The teens and preteens would whisper something to each other occasionally, but it seemed no one was up to gossiping this morning. Harry was rather grateful for that small mercy.

The castle seemed...hollow, he realized. Harry was used to seeing students walking around or talking amicably about the latest _Witch Weekly_. The suits of armor would sometimes walk around and jump out at people, while the portraits would carry out conversations from opposite ends of the hallway (which always seemed to end up as an unintended game of Telephone). And while the armor still moved and the portraits still chatted, it all seemed a bit more muted.

They arrived at the Great Hall at the same time as the Hufflepuffs, who seemed to have come from one of the secret passageways, led by Professor Sprout. At the sight of Harry, they all seemed to converge on each other, each of them glaring at him or frowning at the Gryffindors. A twitch of annoyance once more passed through him and he felt compelled to remind them just whose best friends were now virtual corpses thank-you-very-much. At least professor Sprout seemed to be okay, though that could just be exhaustion stopping her, considering the very noticeable sag in her posture, and the droop in her eyes.

They entered the Great Hall without much fanfare and sat down to eat. The food appeared as soon as he plunked down on the bench, but Harry couldn't really bring himself eat breakfast, even though he had come down there for just that purpose. He was acutely aware of the space around him separating him and the others, and that cynical part of his mind couldn't help but remark that this was just like kindergarten.

Soon, the Slytherins arrived, receiving their own fair share of glares and muttered swears, but they took it in stride, almost smugly even. Harry supposed that they felt vindicated for whatever reason, from the latest chain of events. Their representative Founder had garnered something of a bad reputation over the years, but obviously that was turning around, even if only it was in the minds of children.

After that, the Ravenclaws joined everyone else in the room, and once the last student was through, the doors slammed shut with enough force to shake the tables, sparking a few screams and spilled drinks.

But never let it be said that humans weren't adaptable, because soon the students were laughing once more, or cramming once again for some exam they had failed to study for, or fretting about who snogged who in the Charms classroom last Wednesday. It seemed that the imminent threat of attack never followed through in their minds and so it was once again safe to ponder the important things in life again.

Harry wanted to scream at them to shut up.

Because even as the school returned to life around him, as life moved on, and children laughed, Ron and Hermione were still up in the Hospital Wing and it _just wasn't fair_.

"Well, well, well," drawled out a voice from behind him, prompting him to stiffen, "if it isn't the _Heir of Slytherin_."

"Malfoy." Harry said levelly as he grasped his wand in his pocket lightly.

"Potter." Spat out the Slytherin prince.

Harry turned around on his seat to get a proper look at him. Sure enough, Crabbe and Goyle were there as well. And already., people were starting to stare even though he hadn't even left his seat.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Harry muttered. He hoped to convey a feeling of 'I really don't want to deal with you right now' and 'I swear to Merlin I will break your face in, teachers be damned' but it probably came out more tired and pathetic than he intended.

"Couldn't bear to stand up with them anymore, Scarhead?" The Malfoy mocked, smirking at Harry. The Gryffindor wondered where the git got so much bluster and confidence from, especially considering the boy must know that this wouldn't end well for him.

"Sod off, git."

"Then again, I suppose you had your reasons," the blond continued on, not missing a beat. "I mean, a thing like Granger and a pauper like Weasley following me around? You must be a saint to have put up with that for so long. Tell me," and here the blond gave him a sickening smile, "how did it feel to kill them? What did they look like when yo-"

Harry saw red. He leapt from his seat and punched the other boy straight in the nose. He grabbed the Slytherin's robes and was about to hit him some more before he felt a blinding pain in his side and suddenly noticed that he was falling, courtesy of one Gregory Goyle tackling him in the ribs. Had he not been dazed as he was then, he'd have wondered how the hell the mini-troll had bent low enough to hit him there.

They landed, one beneath the other, but Goyle quickly got up from him, much to Harry's pleasure. The other boy was really freaking heavy, dammit.

People were shouting around him, and Harry could vaguely make out what seemed to be McGonagall calling for order or something insane like that. Raising himself to his knees, he looked at the trio of Slytherins before him, one blond boy clutching his nose and screaming bloody murder, and two big apes wondering whether they got a banana yet or not.

Harry snarled, his blood pumping in his veins as he remembered the too many horrid things they did to him and his friends; the taunts and the hateful things said and wished upon, all for some stupid tiff that Malfoy had with them. Reaching into pocket, Harry grabbed his wand and pointed it the three, uttering the first spell that came to mind.

He really should have gone with the second one.

"_Serpensortia!"_

An enormous snake flew from the tip of his wand, and landed on the ground, some feet away from the other three. The students around them screamed and began to panic, climbing out of their seats and over tables to get as far away from the reptile as possible.

However, before the snake could get properly close to the group of now quivering kids, the voice of a certain Professor intervened.

_"Evanesco!"_

And just like that the snake was gone, as fast as it appeared. Only to be replaced by something far more menacing.

"POTTER!"

Paling, Harry stood and looked in the direction of where the voice came from, feeling his legs turn to stone at the sight of an enraged Professor Snape.

"Did you see that?"

"That snake was huge!"

"He attacked them!"

Snape was striding towards Harry from the High Table, Flitwick and Lockhart in tow. His face was contorted into the fiercest scowl he had ever given Harry and suddenly he felt as if he'd rather face Voldemort than deal with what came next.

"Professor, I-" Harry stopped mid-sentence when he became acutely aware of the glares directed at him.

Snape took another step forward, somehow closing half the distance that was between him and the second year Gryffindor. He still had his wand out and the same cynical part form earlier in Harry wondered if the Potions teacher was going to curse him into oblivion in front of all these witnesses. Of course, that part of him was probably right seeing as how Snape was still advancing upon him.

Snape was finally standing straight in front of Harry. His face seemed even uglier and frightening than usual and his tall form practically on top of him gave Harry the distinct impression that Snape was at least part-vampire.

Harry looked down, wanting so very much that this was all some sick fantasy, but knowing he wasn't that lucky.

"Look at me," came the smooth voice.

Forcing himself to look into Snape's eyes, suddenly Harry felt very exposed to the man.

"Detention, Potter," Snape muttered.

"Huh?"

Still scowling, Snape repeated what he said, "Detention, Potter."

Harry blinked. Only detention? He was expecting the Spanish Inquisition and Filch's prized thumbscrews after that performance. This seemed almost...nice, of Snape.

"O...kay," Harry agreed slowly. He wasn't going to argue. He was in a big enough mess already and he knew it was useless to try and get Snape to punish any Slytherin. They could get away with anything short of murder and even then he doubted the greasy git would do something about it. That is, until he heard what Snape said next.

"Hospital Wing. Tonight at 7. I will inform your Head of House of the duties you will have for the next week." Snape practically danced a jig at the sight of Harry's horrified face.

"The Hospital Wing? A week? But sir-" Harry tried to protest, but he found himself unable to come up with a suitable reason not to take the punishment. Students had no say whatsoever when it came to professors deciding detentions.

The Slytherin Head of House gave Harry a cold look of triumph when he saw the young Gryffindor be silent. Said Gryffindor in question, pondered on the possibility of Snape _really _being capable of reading minds, because if there ever was a better punishment than forcing Harry to look at his friends petrified faces while doing who knows what, then frankly he didn't want to know.

"Hospital Wing. Tonight. One week," repeated the Potions Master, obviously delighting himself in the look on Harry's face, "and don't be late."

Harry gave a sigh of resignation.

"That reminds me," Snape said, turning his gaze towards the Slytherins who had stayed behind, "All of you should know better. 20 points from Slytherin for purposefully provoking Potter."

Whether this sudden unfortunate turn caught them by surprise, Harry did not know. Malfoy looked outraged at this sudden betrayal, while Goyle and Crabbe simply looked lost. Just as the leader of the gits began to open his mouth to no doubt complaint about this, Snape continued.

"And 30 points to you Mr. Goyle, for assisting your housemate quickly and decisively."

Harry's short-lived moment of victory died in a rather spectacular fashion. Goyle probably had trouble understanding half the words in that sentence without a dictionary and yet somehow it felt like getting tackled all over again.

Snape looked around. While he had been dealing with Harry and the others, the rest of the Professors had taken to calming down the rest of the students, all the while assuring them that yes, Mr. Potter did just attack Mr. Malfoy, and that no, Mr. Malfoy was being an arrogant asshole and thus deserved whatever he got.

There may have been some personal bias seeping in that description but Harry would take his victories where he could get them, even if he had to lie to himself sometimes.

"What are you all standing around for?!" Snape snapped at the students that had fallen out of coordination with their respective groups, "Get back to your seats! Classes aren't going to wait for you to finish stuffing yourselves!"

There was some grumbling and some wary looks sent his way, but they complied. As everyone began to calm down, Harry noticed that there was something very off about the High Table. Well, two somethings.

The first was, where was Hagrid? The giant of a man had never missed a meal this year, as part of Dumbledore requesting he attend all student mealtimes to ensure some extra security (something that Hagrid had told Harry was on a strictly need-to-know basis, followed by a wink). Besides, he could really have done with a friendly face in the crowd.

The second: why was Professor McGonagall sitting down in Professor Dumbledore's seat?

At the end of breakfast, Harry found out why when McGonagall addressed the entire school to explain a few more rules they would have to follow. After that, he had the not entirely unreasonable urge to be sick that day.

* * *

It was possibly the worst week Harry had been through in his entire life, including that time he was stuck in the cupboard because the door was stuck and the Dursley's only bothered to help him because the Begonias were starting to look dry. He had been eight years old then, and had thought that was the worst that could happen. Oh, how Harry wished he could punt his eight year old self across the Quidditch pitch for jinxing himself.

Ron and Hermione were petrified, Dumbledore was sent away from the school, Hagrid was in Azkaban (whatever that was), the Heir of Slytherin was still out there, and now it seemed the entire school, bar some exceptions, blamed him for it all.

Harry did not expect hugs and kisses when Ron and Hermione were petrified, but he certainly didn't predict the blatant hostility people were openly expressing towards him. He thought that after the latest attack, the rumors would diminish, but apparently the fact that he would sooner face Voldemort unarmed than attack his friends didn't even cross the minds of those who listened to the latest gossip.

Just the other day, he had to dodge a Jelly-Legs Jinx in the middle of class! It was during Defense Against the Dark Arts and it hit Lockhart square in the face when the spell failed to meet the desired target. The big poof had ended up tripping and hitting his head against the wall, knocking the fool out for a good ten minutes.

Whereas sleep was once a haven from the insanity of his life, it was now just as, if not worse than, his daily life. The dreams with Ron and Hermione were getting more and more ominous with each passing day, with him never reaching them, and them never escaping.

Reality wasn't much better. The looks he was getting from Hufflepuff House bordered on murderous and Harry gladly avoided them as much as possible. It was a well-known fact that everyone in that House valued each other immensely, even if they weren't friends. So to attack one of them was like attacking all of Hufflepuff and they were furious that the culprit hadn't been caught. And, in their anger, they had begun accusing Harry of being guilty of all charges. Since they believed Harry to be the Heir, they found it extremely shameful that he betrayed Ron and Hermione, and only used that to fuel their fire.

Thankfully, there were a few exceptions to this case, but they were so outnumbered that it didn't make much of a difference.

The Ravenclaws and Gryffindors were somewhat divided on the issue, though the sides thinking he was evil seemed to be growing by the day. Even his own dorm-mates, Dean and Seamus, seemed to avoid him now and he had the distinct impression that Lavender and Parvati were terrified of even being in the same room.

Harry hoped that the eagle House of Hogwarts would use the ever famous intelligence they were known for but apparently they too got swept up by all the stories around the castle about him letting loose all kinds of horrors upon the school's denizens. The tales ranged from controlling the teachers, to him being Voldemort's incarnation and killing off Dumbledore. Which was just plain ridiculous!

The place that he felt safest was the dorm room, and even then that was dodgy. Some of the fifth years had already been through his trunk, claiming to have lost some textbooks. Fortunately, Fred and George scared them off before they found something important, mainly his father's invisibility cloak.

Harry was grateful towards the Weasley's. Despite all that happened, they still didn't put any fault on him, but there were times Harry wished they did. They were a tight knit family and he could see how much quieter Fred and George seemed and how puffy Ginny's eyes were every time he saw them. Percy hardly showed up in the common room anymore and according to some he was actively searching for any place the Chamber of Secrets might be. Harry would rather see them angry with him then how they were now.

Currently he was sitting in the Gryffindor common room, silently watching the flames in the fireplace dance and eat away at the logs. Today was going to be his last night of detention and right now he was waiting for Professor McGonagall to pick him up to the Hospital Wing.

Harry sighed, then rubbed his temples as he tried to lessen the headache he had. So much was happening and he couldn't do anything to make it better. It was driving him crazy.

The portrait to the common room swished open, but Harry didn't look at who walked through it. No one else was awake in the tower so the only person it could've been was the Head of House.

"Ready, Mr. Potter?" Her voice was soft but still had a firmness that could only belong to the stern Transfiguration teacher. She knew the crap he had gone through that week but rules were rules and she couldn't exempt him from a detention that was well-deserved.

Nodding, Harry stood up and walked over to where she was, all without saying a word.

McGonagall frowned.

The portrait opened once more, and they left.

* * *

The walk to the Hospital Wing was just as quiet as all the other ones. It all seemed so incredibly monotonous to Harry that he was pretty sure he dozed off in the middle of it and let his feet do the walking.

It was like a routine.

Get up. Go to breakfast. Ignore others. Go to class. Eat lunch. Go to class. Have dinner. Wait in the common room. Go to detention. Go to sleep. Do it all over again.

Harry sometimes pretended he liked it like that. No danger, no injuries, nothing. But then he'd turn to his side to talk to someone who wasn't there and remember.

Without Ron and Hermione, everything seemed so dull.

After bidding Professor McGonagall goodbye and being told that someone would be by later to escort him back to the tower, Harry closed the door to the Hospital Wing and mentally prepared himself to see his friends again. He turned around and-

"Hello."

Harry was pulled from his thoughts by the airy voice that had greeted him. Blinking, he rubbed his eyes to make sure he was seeing right.

Yes. Yes, he was.

There in front of him, was the most bizarrely dressed girl he had ever seen, witches included.

She had waist length silvery blond hair, that, by the looks of it, had several odd things attached to it in various places. Her Hogwarts uniform had several large dots on it that were changing colors at a rapid pace. She was wearing what looked to be a radish earring on one ear, and what looked like a miniature muggle car on the other. Her eyes were wide, giving her a look of permanent shock.

Some part of him couldn't help but remark that she looked like an owl with those gray eyes staring fixedly into his green ones.

"Erm...uh...hi?" Harry responded nervously as he took in her appearance. Who was she? He thought she seemed familiar but he was fairly sure he never met this girl, let alone talked to her. With a fashion sense like hers, he was pretty sure he'd remember someone like her.

The mystery girl tilted her head, as if to get a better look at him. "Figglenorf got your tongue?" she asked, blatant curiosity written all over her face.

"E-excuse me?" he stuttered as she moved closer. Too close! Too close!

"A Figglenorf," she repeated calmly, unperturbed by their proximity to each other.

Harry had no idea what a Figglenorf was, but he figured he'd better say no unless she got closer for a more thorough inspection.

"N-no, I'm sure I don't," he said as he carefully took a step back from the estranged girl.

The only response this seemed to elicit from the girl was a slow blink. Then she took another step forward towards Harry.

Harry audibly gulped. He could literally feel her breath on his face now. His personal bubble had been breached about two feet ago.

"You have beautiful eyes," she said all of a sudden, causing Harry to jump slightly from the pure randomness of the sentence.

"Thank...you?" he answered awkwardly. It wasn't everyday a girl wearing the most...interesting of clothing choices just walks up to you and compliments your eyes. What else was he supposed to say?

The girl in question, however, either didn't notice or didn't care about how uncomfortable the young Gryffindor was, because the next second she had leaned in so close, both their foreheads were touching, and their lips were only centimeters apart.

Harry let out an unmanly squeak and backed off as fast as he could from the probably insane girl. Just what the hell was she doing?

He felt the blood rise to his face. Crazy or not, she was still a girl and that was the most physically intimate he had ever been with a girl, barring Hermione and her hugs.

His face fell when he remembered his petrified best friends. In the last week, he had avoided dwelling upon the subject as much as possible. It was hard to think about them. It didn't help that he saw them so many times at the Hospi-

"Look, I'm sorry and all, but I have to find Madam Pomfrey," Harry said, politely motioning for her to get out of the way. "Y'see, I'm in detention."

"Oh?" The girl looked more pleasantly surprised at that. "So you as well? That's lovely, we're detention buddies then." She crossed her arms and gave him an approving nod. "Wonderful, now I won't have to smother my arms in Yam juice to ward off the Sleepy Meirgs."

"What?" Harry said, before he shook his head. "Forget it, look, do you know where she is?"

"Hmm? Yes, she's here at Hogwarts."

They both stayed like that, neither of them saying anything, leaving both of them to their own thoughts.

_'She's crazy,' _Harry thought decisively as he took in the sight of the weirdly dressed girl. _'No other way to put it. Completely loony.'_

"Ah, Mr. Potter, I see you've met your partner for tonight."

Looking to see who it was who spoke, Harry's mind began going at a mile a minute at the words 'partner'.

The Hogwarts nurse gave him a pitying smile. Gesturing towards the girl, who was now humming something that sounded suspiciously like Old McDonald, Madam Pomfrey said "This here is Miss Luna Lovegood, she will be assisting you in the task I have for you tonight."

As Ron would say...

"Bloody hell," Harry whispered under his breath.

He wondered if Madam Pomfrey had any headache potion stored around here.

**End Chapter 1**

**Author Notes: I'm inviting a whole bag of trouble upon my head by restarting this thing. Last week I checked out my old fics just for the hell of it, and I noticed this thing was recommended on a few websites, TvTropes being a prominent example (Nice job past me!). Thing is, this is the one that made me cringe the most. Of course, since this is a rewrite, chapters should be better for the most part. **

**Seriously, I look at my writing from back then and I want to bash my own brains in with a baseball bat. I was atrocious. Probably still am, actually.**

**I cut out a shit ton of stuff here. Mostly because I realized that one of the reasons the last one sucked so hard in my opinion is because I kept trying to do too much. This story is obviously a Harry/Luna friendship fic, so having the fucking Bloody Baron show up all the time was idiotic of me. And then the freaking interludes. Ugh.**

**I messed with the Slytherin scene because upon coming back and looking at it I couldn't help but wonder what I was smoking then. Oh, and I cut out some of the more 'dramatic' sentences that worked as nothing but padding. Hopefully, I still got all the anger of a twelve year old Harry, along with the stupidity that comes with being twelve as well. Two bucks says that you think you were a little turd at twelve too.**

**Since, this is a question that inevitable pops up, no, this is not a shipping fic. That means no Harry smooching' Luna, no lovemaking' happening, no lemons, etc. Why? Primarily because they're twelve and naive little kids. While Harry/Luna has always been a favorite of mine, it's their dynamic that has been the interesting part, not the amount of sexing things up they can manage in a single night (extreme example but you should get the point). To avoid falling into that pitfall of so many romance writers, this is a _friendship_ fic.**

**Also, no normal-all-along!Luna.**


	2. Chapter 2: Veritaserum and the Impala

**Chapter 2**

Harry's first ever impression of girls was that they were weird.

Harry's current impression of girls still was that they were weird, though less so than he originally thought.

Harry's impression of Luna Lovegood however, was that either she taking the piss out on him, or that she was a couple Famous Witches and Wizards Cards short of a complete set.

He supposed that there might be others but for some reason he really didn't want to know of them. Probably would've given him a headache and only confused him even more than he already was.

"What are you thinking of, Harry Potter?" Luna asked from beside him, for what seemed to be the sixty-third time for the last half hour. A couple more than that, but since he lost count in the first five minutes he decided to start again.

These detentions could get incredibly dull.

His eye twitched, but kept quiet. Maybe he should put her into the annoying category also. While some part of him did want to make talk with her, he didn't want to risk Madam Pomfrey finding out and possibly making him stay later than necessary or have him come again tomorrow. The old nurse didn't miss a trick in her Hospital Wing.

Still, he didn't say anything that could even remotely suggest how much her persistence in repeating the same phrase was irritating him.

"It's rude to ignore people that are trying to have a conversation with you," Luna remarked, not sounding all that bothered about it despite her claim.

Maybe repeating the same thing over and over wasn't what was wearing his patience out, maybe it was just her in general. She was certainly...vibrant enough.

She seemed like just another student. Once you got over the initial shock factor of her appearance and eccentricities you could see she was rather normal. At least, that's what Harry had originally hoped. Right now he was wondering just how many times she'd been dropped on her head as a child.

Turning his attention away from the estranged female on his right, Harry looked at the pile of dead snakes that was his detention.

There was probably something poetic about this. If the entire thing with the Chamber of Secrets wasn't so serious, Harry would've had a good laugh at hearing the night's task: removing snake fangs which are to be used in the Mandragora Revitalization potion.

Something poked him. Harry turned to the only possible person.

"Do you make it a habit of spacing out while you're in detention?" She asked, and quite innocently too.

She poked him again.

Some part of him remarked he was probably going to need two headache potions when the night was over.

"So what'd you do to get in detention?" Harry asked as he watched her return to removing the fangs with expert ease. It amazed him how she could do it without getting at least one injury. He himself had gotten about a dozen pinpricks from the pointy dentures but he didn't know if it was because she was just good, or he himself was challenged. Luckily the fangs weren't poisonous, but having little holes in your hand was annoying.

"Oh, apparently I ended up breaking the dress code a few too many times," she said. Her dreamy voice gave the impression of being permanently dazed. "The professors don't seem to approve of my earrings too much, even if they do ward off the Malignant Merbles."

"Huh?" He hoped that would make as much sense to anyone else as it did to him. "Err..."

"It really is unfortunate you know," she went on, either ignoring his confusion or actually oblivious to it. "I was so looking forward to sharing my Impala with Ginny."

"Wh-what?" Harry stumbled on his words. "Wait, you know Ginny?"

The girl smiled and shrugged the shrug of the carefree. "I know _a_ Ginny. I don't know if I know another Ginny. If I do, I hope I don't mix the two of them up. I imagine they'd be rather cross with me if I called one of them Ginny, and the other one Ginny."

Harry stared at the girl, now for certain that something was not right with her. Mentally reaching out for some firm ground to stand on, Harry pounced back on the earlier topic. "So, the professors don't like how you dress?"

Luna shook her head. "They don't like how my earrings ears."

He tried to wrap his mind around that sentence without breaking out the quantum physics. "Umm...could you explain?"

Because hey, why not, it's not like there was anyone around to scold them; Harry had a sneaking suspicion that Madam Pomfrey was tacitly encouraging this by not opening her office door like she did the previous nights. Why? He had no idea, but he supposed it wasn't to do him harm.

"Well," Luna said in her own matter-of-fact manner, "I have been having trouble remembering a few things for classes, as things are so dreadfully different from back home, and there is quite a bit more work than I expected. So, I took the liberty of having my clothes recite certain passages from the textbooks whenever I was pickled."

Harry smiled at the word even though he was almost one hundred percent sure she meant 'in a pickle'. He didn't bother correcting her.

"So, when I went to use my Impala," and here she brushed aside her straggly blonde locks to give him a better look, "in class today, Professor Snape gave me detention for disrupting the lesson and for 'being dotty enough to bring a clearly magical object into a Potions laboratory'."

Harry winced in sympathy. Yes, he could certainly see Snape doing that to a student, particularly this student. He had a feeling that Luna tended to exhaust people rather easily, and the man was testy on a good day.

He made a mental note to ask Ginny about Luna when he saw her next. That, and to learn whatever spell Luna used to keep a recording like that.

"Still, you're rather lucky," Harry commented, hoping to somehow convey his sympathy and console the girl about the punishment, "at least he didn't take off any points."

"Oh he did," the girl said flippantly. She certainly didn't seem too conflicted about it, "twenty-five to be precise, but the points are rather silly if you ask me. What's the point of giving or taking away points if they're reset at the beginning of each year?"

He opened to his mouth to say something about that, but Harry caught himself before a sound came out. Luna's question was almost reasonable enough for him to consider the implications for a moment. Instead, flushing for no reason he'd be willing to admit, Harry turned his attention back to the defanging, with a mumbled, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

The girl made a noncommittal noise that possibly could have been interpreted as smug.

A tense atmosphere descended upon them. Neither said anything as they kept working in silence, but Harry couldn't help but feel agitated with the way things were.

It reminded him of when he was held back from recess in his second year of primary school. His teacher had told him that he had to clean the classroom because of the mess _he_ made. Harry frowned as he thought back on that. He never liked the dingbat of a woman that had been his teacher; she was far too snappish to be teaching kids.

He looked at Luna again, hoping to somehow glean more from the girl while he was distracted. To his embarrassment, she was staring back at him, her hands still defanging the snakes with enough expertise to make him a tiny bit jealous.

"You're Harry Potter," she said, all the wonder in the world in her voice. While normally the tone of voice would put him off from interacting with the speaker, he imagined that Luna spoke the same way about many others things, like pudding or moss.

Nodding awkwardly, Harry looked away from her. Her ever-present stare was unnerving.

"Hmm…you're not very polite, you know?" she said.

"I'd say that's the pot calling the kettle black right there."

"Pardon? I don't understand."

Harry wanted to say that there were very many things that she did not understand if this was how she interacted with people on a daily basis. He kept such thoughts to himself though as he just waved off her question with a "Nevermind."

"I can see why the Yhadks, like you so much," the girl kept going, "All that rudeness must be incredibly delicious to them. Tell me, do you wash out the eggs with pineapple or marmalade?"

The Gryffindor just stared at her, mouth agog. He reviewed her previous sentences in his head, and found that the disconnect between them was enough to give a lesser person ulcers.

That's when she did it. Thanks to the proximity of their seats, she didn't even have to get up. Leaning forward fluidly, Luna once again pressed her forehead to his and stared him down.

Blushing, he leaped back from his chair but just ended up tilting the chair far enough for it to fall to the ground.

"Would you stop doing that!?" he shouted, his voice just a tad bit higher in pitch than normal.

What was wrong with this girl? This was like the third time he yelled at her, yet she didn't show any reaction one would expect after being yelled at! It almost seemed like she didn't care what he said. _'She's just so...so...aarrgh...I don't know what she is!' _he thought, completely exasperated with the girl.

Said girl just blinked in response to him yelling at her. This probably wasn't the first time someone yelled at her and it certainly would not be the last if she kept acting as she did.

"I'm sorry," she said as she got up from her seat, "it's just that your eyes look so much like a Crumple-Horned Snorkacks' that I wanted to get a better look at them."

"A Crumpled-Horn what?" Harry really was at his wits end with her.

She was making no sense! Figglenorfs, these things with horns and apparently had eyes like his...he again revisited the thought that she was having him on and that those things didn't exist to begin with.

"A Crumple-Horned Snorkack," she again replied peacefully. Outstretching her hand she looked at him with an expectant countenance.

An unfortunately familiar feeling of guilt welled up within him as he grasped her arm.

Now that he thought about it, she had been nothing but polite and nice to him all evening, even if far too blunt for his liking. She at least deserved some courtesy.

It humbled Harry greatly to realize that he was not above being a prat to others for such petty reasons.

He pitied her, he realized then. He didn't really know why, he barely knew the girl, but still, he imagined she mustn't have a lot of friends.

Luna jabbed him with her finger. Why was she poking him again?

"Luna, would you please stop poking me?" he asked her with as much calm as he could muster. Pity or not, he didn't like to be prodded like some kind of animal.

"I was just checking to see if you weren't spacing out again." The reply came in an almost defensive tone that was very reminiscent of Hermione when she made a mistake on her homework.

Unable to stop himself, he turned to look towards the bed in which his best friend laid on, not even twenty feet away from him.

That's when he remembered what he was supposed to be doing, but before he could say anything Luna beat him right to it.

"Shouldn't we be defanging those snakes, Harry Potter?" she queried as she got up and extended her hand once again.

Harry gave her a small smile that he honestly hoped hid what he was feeling right now. Alright, maybe it wasn't the end of the world just yet if there were still people like her around.

"Took the words right out of my mouth."

Her reply was instantaneous. "Oh, I don't think that's possible. As far as I know, only Croowars can steal the words out of someone's mouth and they only appear on the third week of August every Leap Year."

Yep, Luna was odd, but that wasn't necessarily bad.

* * *

Their conversation lasted all throughout the rest of detention, only taking breaks whenever Madam Pomfrey would come out of her office to make sure they were doing good work or when a staff member stopped by to check up on everything. Technically they didn't have to keep quiet, but Harry didn't want to put up with any more curious looks than he had to. Luna, of course, hadn't a clue what he meant when he explained it to her.

Filled with nightmares and dark whispers or not, Harry was used to getting his usual amount of sleep. So after having been escorted back from detention last night (separate from Luna, which ruled out the possibility of her being in Gryffindor), and see the time, he practically leapt into bed and fell asleep, glad to finally be over with detentions.

His conversation with the blonde girl had been interesting, to say the least. The topics had ranged from Snape's favoritism towards Slytherins (Harry was vicious throughout the whole discussion), to the habits of several magical creatures that Luna mentioned (he was sincerely grateful that he didn't even understand a single word she said, because some of it sounded mentally disturbing just from the names). The topics were wide and varied with neither of them spending too much time pondering them. Strangely, the Chamber of Secrets wasn't even mentioned in passing during the entire thing. Of course, that isn't to say that everything was comprehensible for the young Gryffindor; some of the things the weirdly dressed girl said were just unintelligible.

Yawning, Harry struggled to keep his eyes open as the entire Gryffindor House gathered in the common room once more. He was one of the many that mirrored his condition. Godric's chosen weren't exactly known for their early risers.

"Is everyone here?" Mcgonagall asked crisply. She looked less haggard than a week ago as she was slowly easing into the position of Headmistress, though with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

Seeing the assent from the crowd, she opened the portrait hole with a simple flick of her wand. "Very well, now if you would please follow me." And with that she stepped out onto the seventh floor corridor, several Gryffindor's already behind her.

Harry waited for the crowd to thin out before even attempting to follow. After minute or two, he got up from his admittedly comfortable spot and began to exit.

However, as luck would have it, he tripped when he was getting down from the small step to the ground and collided with the person right in front of him. They both stumbled, but neither fell.

"Sorry," he muttered as he tried to reign in his embarrassment.

"It's oka-" the stranger began to say but stopped when he realized who he was talking to. "Oh, it's you."

The cold tone did not go unnoticed by Harry, and he probably would've dismissed it if he had been more well-rested. Backing down now didn't seem like much of an option.

"Yes, me." Eyes narrowed, he tried to remember the stranger's name.

_'Macbeth...McDonald...McClellan...'_

They locked gazes. By now the small exchange between them had attracted everyone's attention in the immediate vicinity. The silence was tense and Professor McGonagall observed with a stony expression. Harry could practically feel the disapproval rolling off her, but nothing had happened yet.

It was not to be, though, because soon the rest of the Gryffindors had exited the portrait hole, and upon seeing the collective in front of her the Fat Lady began to speak.

"Off with you now," she said, making shooing motions with her hands. "Can't have you loitering around me, now go on, shoo..."

The two ended their staring contest when they heard that, but not before exchanging hateful glances and some parting words.

"Git," said Harry.

"Traitor," said the other.

Harry felt anger bubble beneath his skin. Traitor? Him? He didn't know why but that simple word stung much more than it should have. He'd been called a lot of things in his life, but traitor was new.

"Harry, we've gotta' go, we can't lag back too much or else we'll get in trouble," Ginny, who was the only one that had stayed with Harry, tugged on his robes as she pointed to the group that was almost completely around the corner.

"Huh? Wha- oh yeah, thanks Ginny."

The youngest Weasley blushed. Looking down at the floor, she avoided looking at Harry as she replied with a barely heard, "You're welcome."

The anger he was feeling was a hard thing to hold onto. He was still in a foul mood as they descended the halls of Hogwarts, but lethargy was taking over again. By the time he and the other Gryffindor's finally arrived in the Great Hall, the green-eyed boy was dead on his feet and in no condition whatsoever to listen to Lockhart drone on and on about himself without falling asleep. He resented the fact that weekend classes were the ones that all students in general had problems in. Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts, ugh.

After some commotion involving a few of the older Hufflepuff students (something involving a Switching Spell), to which Harry just shrugged and moved on from, he sat down to have some breakfast. Looking around the Great Hall, Harry couldn't help but wonder why everybody kept trying to keep things as close to normal as possible.

The Chamber of Secrets had been opened, but beyond a few words claiming some of the Castle's inhabitants were suffering from some case of Three-Year Gorgon Eyes, for which a cure was being rapidly brewed, not much news regarding the events of Hogwarts seemed to be making it to the outside world.

It made sense in a twisted way, Harry reasoned. Few things could match the hysteria and panic of a worried parent, and having literal hundreds of said parents with students at the school being notified of a very possible man-eater existing in the same building…it was not a pretty thought.

"Mr. Potter?"

Harry turned to see Professor McGonagall looking down at him. Flushing, Harry, looked at the ground and mumbled a very respectful "Professor McGonagall" to the Scotswoman. The woman was just naturally intimidating at times, especially now with the added title of Headmistress to her name.

"I would like to congratulate you on your restraint this morning," the Professor commented lightly, a thin smile indicating her pleasure, "Many a wizard would have resorted to violence at having their honor challenged like that."

Harry thought back to his previous mindset prior to arriving at the Great Hall this morning, and he couldn't help but feel a twitch of shame. He wondered if she would be saying the same thing to him now if she knew the urges he wanted to act upon.

"Umm, thank you Professor," Harry replied in earnest, "I guess, after everything this year, that just seems…small I guess."

Or it had been sleep deprivation acting up. Take your pick.

"Nevertheless-" and here the young boy couldn't help the ludicrous thought of the existence of a prawn-like creature with four pincers called Nevertheless.

'_Ack,' _Harry caught himself, _'It's contagious!'_

"-lities I've always looked for in my house, so I award you ten points."

Oh. That was a nice surprise. The good cheer did not last long with McGonagall's next sentence.

"And now, I must speak with you on a matter of great importance."

One week. Harry would have given anything, even his Nimbus, for one week of relative tranquility at this point.

"Professor?" He tentatively asked.

The Transfigurations Professor was torn from her conversation by the quite loud barnyard animal noises emerging from the Slytherin table. Harry spotted Fred and George grinning like madmen at the sight, only for those grins to fall far faster than he expected.

Plunge proverbial knife in, and twist. Harry really was beginning to hate this Heir of Slytherin person.

Ron still _was_ in the Hospital Wing. The fact only put even more of a damper on Harry's mood.

Things quieted down easily enough, after that, with McGonagall not even bothering with a stern lecturing before the entire Great Hall. She just took away some points and told them Snape would be handling their punishment for the next two days.

If it were possible to seem both delighted and disgusted, then Snape took the prize in that category. His onyx eyes skimmed the rest of the Hall, as if searching for any more fresh meat to tenderize that night.

Unseen by anyone but Harry, the twins gave each other a fistbump.

Harry smiled. At least they still had each other. And Percy. And Ginny, he thought, as he caught sight of Ginny picking up the books from her book bag that had been kicked open in the commotion to see the farm. She was being helped by Lockhart, who kept babbling on and on about something involving him undoubtedly.

"Now, as I was talking," McGonagall said as she returned from carrying out her teacher-ly duties. "I must inform you of a decision the Board of Governors has 'asked' we of the Hogwarts staff consider."

His brows furrowed. As far as he could see, he had yet to see how this involved him. He kept his quiet, and waited for the Professor to continue.

"The members of the Board are quite concerned about the latest information they've been getting from their children –yes, Mr. Potter, they do have family attending- and they've noticed that most of it seems to have some relation to you."

Harry was quiet as the information came through, even though he could guess it was not going to be pleasant.

"They've asked us, the Hogwarts staff, to consider expelling you should any more unfavorable rumors come to light."

It was like someone had dumped him into an ice bath. He tried to say something but nothing seemed appropriate except for those words his Uncle Vernon used to like describing his parents with. And those definitely weren't for polite company.

"Obviously, the Minister of Magic is displeased with the notion. He seems to be under the impression that the matter has been resolved what with Hagrid's incarceration. Not to mention the last time a second year was expelled was 500 years ago. So you can imagine the sort of fuss that would kick up."

"No, professor, I don't think I can," Harry managed to croak out. "_Expelled?_"

"Temporary expulsion, Mr. Potter," the Professor said lightly, a touch of emotion on her face. "Should the matter of the Chamber be resolved after your expulsion, you would of course, be reinstated as a student with next year's tuition fully paid for."

Harry didn't have to be a Seer to know that the 'temporary' qualifier amounted to the same thing that came out of a bull's back end. It seemed McGonagall did too, but she at least made an effort to console him.

"Only I have the final word on this, and I assure you Mr. Potter nothing more would please me than to end this charade of proactivity and have Dumbledore back on that seat," and here she pointed to the Headmaster's seat at the High Table, "but unless you cooperate with me here, there's not much I'll be able to do for you."

"What- what do I have to do?" Harry asked firmly. Anything and everything, he told himself. Just no expulsion.

"Stay out of trouble."

"That's it?" came the incredulous reply.

"Yes. They are currently pressuring us to already bring it to vote among the staff, but if you manage to behave the rest of the school year, they'll drop the matter." And McGonagall looked hopeful just at the mention of that happening.

It was then that Harry realized that it was not him that the Board of Governors was after, but something else. "They're pressuring you into expelling me so that you won't have to do something worse, is that right?"

McGonagall looked surprised at his deduction and the knot in his stomach tightened in even further. That all but confirmed it then.

"Yes, what it is, I will not say, but suffice to say Hogwarts as a whole would suffer for it." Harry grimaced. He wondered what it said about him that he honestly considered asking McGonagall to damn the school as a whole instead of expelling him. "Tell me, Mr. Potter, how did you guess?"

Looking around at the rest of the students, Harry managed to explain his reasoning without letting her see his expression. He didn't trust himself to look her straight in the eye at the moment.

"I guess it's mostly because the Board of Governors really have nothing to gain by getting rid of me, _especially_ if the Minister is against it." Though why the man was even informed of the situation was beyond him. "But they would maybe be able to bargain something out of the professors here, if they threatened something else. _Exempli gratia_: me."

McGonagall was silent for a moment but she gained her bearings soon enough, and told him softly, "You really should apply that mind of yours to your education more often Mr. Potter. You could be quite amazing if you tried."

Harry managed to resist rolling his eyes, but didn't bother hiding the grin on his face. It was half-luck he'd guessed the Board of Governor's motives correctly, but if she chose to believe it the other way, he wasn't going to correct her. And he was actually perfectly happy with his own grades, stellar though they might not be.

"Remember, Mr. Potter, no trouble," Professor McGonagall reminded him as she left for the High Table. Breakfast was already wrapping up and she had yet to grab even a scrap of toast for herself.

As Harry sat, and downed a goblet of orange juice, he immediately noticed something was wrong when he felt the completely obvious stares of the Hufflepuff sixth year students behind him. They began firing questions questions at a mile a minute, dizzying Harry with the abruptness of it all. And then his vision started getting murky. Followed by too many thoughts of wooden boards and snitches and Impalas, and so on.

'_Dammit, not even five minutes.' _He thought, before the splitting headache knocked him out.

* * *

Harry woke up to see an all too familiar ceiling.

_'Oh for Merlin's sake, didn't I spend enough time here last night already,'_ he thought bitterly, as he tried to sit up only to find that someone was holding him down.

"You need to _rest_ Mr. Potter," came the voice of Madam Pomfrey.

Next thing he knew, a goblet full of something was shoved to his face and pressed to his mouth. Having been caught unprepared by this sudden action, he immediately swallowed the contents but a scant two seconds later he wished he didn't. It tasted nasty! Skele-Gro nasty!

He could practically feel the smug grin of Madam Pomfrey as she spoke. "I figured that'd be your reaction, so instead of peacefully giving a potion like last time, I thought I'd catch you off guard."

Suddenly, his attention was diverted by a voice on his right. "Good evening, Harry Potter."

Looking over to where the voice came from, Harry was met with the sight of a girl with dirty blond hair looking at him while sitting straight up on a bed.

Harry blinked. Did he know this girl? And then the memories from last night returned to him...

"Luna?"

The girl nodded. Giving him again one of those vague smiles, she turned her attention back towards the magazine she had in her hands.

He looked at the name of it. _The Quibbler_, eh? He heard about that, Hermione said it was the most useless piece of paper media in the world and that everything in it was complete and utter garbage, from the editor to the ads. Cringing a bit at the thought of Hermione and resisting the brief urge to look at the quarantined corner, Harry thought there was some strange sense of rightness in the fact that Luna read it.

Noticing her House crest, Harry was actually kind of surprised that she was a Ravenclaw. She certainly didn't seem like one, what with her belief in imaginary creatures. Despite evidence to the contrary from last night, he had thought her more of a Gryffindor, even though he'd never seen her around the common room. They _were_ the most unique, what with the Boy-Who-Lived, the Weasley twins, Neville Longbottom (aka He-Who-Must-Not-Attempt-To-Brew-A-Potion) and everyone else. He supposed though, that in a twisted way, it made sense that Luna was a Ravenclaw. She had to be smart to remember all that stuff about those animals.

"-ith?"

Harry paused his train of thought and tried to recall what Madam Pomfrey just asked.

The Hogwarts nurse sighed. "You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

Shaking his head in negative, he offered her an apologetic smile.

"You were knocked out, Mr. Potter. Veritaserum poisoning, I'm afraid," she said, bustling about with something in the cupboards, her back now turned to him.

Harry resisted the urge to ask what Veritaserum even was. His head was hurting like nothing before, save for that time with Quirrel last year. Harry just wished he could remember just what it was exactly had transpired after drinking the pumpkin juice. Looking out the window, he took note of how dark it was and felt cheated by Madam Pomfrey for her not waking him up sooner.

He had been planning on sneaking out to Hagrid's place that night to see if he'd be able to glean anything on the Heir of Slytherin or the Chamber of Scerets from the place. Harry firmly believed in Hagrid's innocence, and he would be the first to stand up for the large teddy bear of a man. Even so, that didn't mean he wouldn't be able to learn anything.

Even with McGonagall's warning, something in Harry knew that it was only a matter of time, possibly as short as days, before things came to a head and he was expelled for some trifle of a reason. If anything it only increased his sense of urgency.

Of course, having been dosed with Verita-whatever seemed to have put that plan on the backburner for the moment.

He heard Madam Pomfrey cluck disapprovingly as she came over with a stoppered bottle of something violet and oily-looking. "I knew having Severus teach sixth years how to brew that potion was a foolish idea, but no, apparently, the ripe young age of sixteen is considered the perfect age of maturity and wise choices!"

Perhaps Harry was still feeling the figurative blow to his head but was she making a joke?

The nurse poured a drop of the violet substance into a glass of water, and Harry felt his eyes water at the pungent smell it produced.

"Medicine isn't supposed smell good Mr. Potter."

Harry looked at the glass. "Am I going to have to drink that?" He prayed he would not.

Madam Pomfrey gave him a hard stare and Harry looked away. "No, this is a scent-only remedy." She put the glass on the nightstand beside the bed. "If I had my way, you'd be chugging potions and sleeping here for a week. Potion overdoses are the nastiest things, because you never know what might come of them, or even when.

"You're sleeping here tonight, Mr. Potter. Nothing more, nothing less." With that, the matron looked sternly at him. Soon she left to go to her office.

An awkward silence descended upon the two patients.

Harry had to admit he felt a bit suffocated with the lack of conversation. While he wasn't very outspoken like the Weasley twins, he still liked to chat.

Luna was humming a tune while she looked around the Hospital Wing. She sort of looked like a child in a toy store, with everything she saw being a toy or some other contraption. Harry noticed that she was now missing the Impala earring.

"So umm...why are you here?" he asked nervously. Perhaps another day of rumors and him absconding from normalcy had changed her opinion of him already.

His fears were unfounded. Luna gave him one of her vague smiles, for whose existence's he still couldn't find a reason for, and answered, "I fell down the stairs."

Either Luna really thought that leaving her answer like that was fine, or she just didn't understand the universally accepted unspoken principle of explaining what the hell happened.

He had no clue which was the right one in this case. Maybe both, from what little he knew of her, it probably wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

"Could you say that again?"

"I suppose I should've given a more thorough explanation, yes?" She put her hand to her face, as if actually contemplating it!

_'You think?'_ his mind retorted sarcastically; instead of voicing his thoughts word for word though, he opted for a more polite approach. "If you'd please?"

She nodded. "Certainly!"

"You see, I was walking with my classmates down to the Great Hall..."

* * *

"Did you hear about Potter?" a voice in front of Luna asked.

"Hear about it? I saw it!" the person's companion answered, in a snobby voice very much like that second year Slytherin girl whose name escaped her at the moment.

Just then someone bumped into Luna, and if she wasn't so sure that it was impossible, she could have sworn that her shoelaces had suddenly become untied. After all, her classmates weren't that rude or mean to actually go through with something like that.

They were almost down the last staircase to the Great Hall, when she began to get bored of discussing Harry Potter. She had nothing against him, in fact she found his eyes so very pretty, just like a Crumple-Horned Snorkack's, except that his looked more like the female version. Not to mention he was quite pleasant to talk to.

But there was only so much talk about a person she could take without said person being there. And so, she began to focus on the next thing to grab her attention.

Dust.

Hundred upon hundreds of dust particles floating around. Ah, Filch must not have passed by this part of the castle just yet.

As she gazed upon the little pieces of one of a cleanfreaks' worst nightmares, she became aware that she was falling, and as much as the feeling of gravity pulling down felt good, it ended with the noise of body meeting floor.

* * *

"...and then when I woke up, I was here." Again with the matter-of-fact tone.

Harry didn't know what to make of the story. One thing he could say of it though was that uninformative it was not.

On one hand, he was kind of relieved that Luna didn't listen to whatever the rest of her classmates said about him; sure he might not know her all that much, but still, the fact that apparently she was some kind of outsider with her own peers made him feel a sort of kinship towards her. On the other hand, he couldn't describe his sentiments about the part where dust was more interesting.

He didn't think of himself as vain by any stretch of the imagination, still, being upstaged by something that could be removed with a feather duster was not good for the ego.

Regardless, his suspicion about her classmates being a bit alienated from her seemed spot on, and the pity he was feeling for her from last night returned and with a vengeance.

If he had to make one comment on her tale, it was that she seemed to be a bit naive in relation to her classmates. Which probably was a collateral effect of not maintaining a stable friendship with anyone, barring Ginny….though he had seen neither hide nor hair of Luna during his time at the Burrow.

"That was err...exquisite, Luna," Harry commented after he absorbed it all. A part of him was questioning his word choice, noting how it sounded like something you say in a fancy restaurant where you just had a nice meal and wanted to sound smart. He didn't even know what exquisite was anyway.

But apparently Luna did. "You think my story was of special beauty or charm, or rare and appealing excellence, as a face, a flower, coloring, music, or poetry."

"What?"

"That's what it means," Luna explained as she began leafing through her magazine absentmindedly. "Well, one of the definitions at least."

Not wanting wanting to lose any more face, Harry decided to steer the conversation in another direction, but Luna interjected before he could utter a single word.

"Want to hear all the definitions?" she suddenly inquired. The eager look on her face gave Harry the impression she wanted him to say yes. Harry didn't want to come off as rude or a git, but neither was he interested in listening to her rattle off a dictionary. So he told her no, not really, maybe another time.

The disappointed look came and went, but Harry ignored the guilt that came with it. It wasn't his job to appease this girl, and neither was it hers to appease him.

Suddenly, she burst out into laughter.

"I'm...sorry," she said in between giggles, confusing him even further, "but...you should've...seen...your face hahaha! Did you really think I would do that?"

Even stumped as he was to the subject of humor, he felt the telltale signs of embarrassment crawl up his face, making it as red as a tomato. Maybe Luna wasn't the only naive one around there. Despite his awkwardness, he smiled at the still giggling schoolgirl.

As she began to calm down, her sentences became more coherent. "I'm sorry," she said, sounding truly regretful while saying so, except she still kept her grin, "that was mean of me."

As much as he wanted to be irritated with her, to berate her for doing such a thing, even to tell her it wasn't that funny as payback, Harry couldn't bring himself to do any of it. He didn't want to bring down her good mood, as such a thing was difficult to find nowadays in the castle.

"Nah, it's fine," he replied while waving it off, grinning he then said "I must have looked pretty dumb there." Even though he was still uncertain as to what on earth she was laughing about.

"Still..." She bit her lip. It seemed she wasn't used to this kind of thing.

"Listen," He told her, "the thing was funny, no sense in apologizing unless the person was offended and I wasn't, so it's okay."

She accepted that easily. Harry was surprised though, he didn't expect for her to get uncomfortable because of a small joke.

"Where's the Impala?" He blurted out unexpectedly, suddenly wondering if he was channeling his inner Ron-ness.

Either not noticing his discomfort at his own question, or simply not caring, Luna answered in her usual way. "Ah, it went missing this morning."

That distracted him from his guilt. She seemed fond of the earring so it came as a surprise to him that she lost it. "That's unfortunate. Have you tried looking for it?"

She shook her head. "Someone found it this afternoon. I saw it in their hands, but now it just needs to be unfound."

Was 'unfound' even a word? It probably wasn't but she still said it and used it in a sentence.

She pointed to her lone ear. "My earring had some more magic cast on them by mistake last night, when my roommates were practicing for class."

He narrowed his eyes. That sounded a bit too suspicious to him, but who was he to judge.

"According to them, I have to wait on the earrings. The charm that had been applied to them makes them disappear and reappear for hours on end, so now I have to wait a few days for it to come back." She didn't sound all that concerned about it by the look of her face.

Despite her indifference, Harry still felt that same pang of sympathy form last night for her plight.

_"Rip...slash...tear...hungry...must eat...kill...kill...KILLL..."_

Harry was out of his bed at the first word.

"Did you hear that?" he suddenly demanded towards the blonde girl, whose absurdly open eyes widened even more.

"Hear what, Harry Potter?" she asked, as she looked around the Hospital Wing. "I can't say I-"

Harry suddenly shushed her, causing her to go silent. He remained utterly still, straining his ears for any sign of the monster. Or person. Or whatever it was.

"_Hungry."_

Shuddering at the menace in that word alone, Harry surveyed the Hospital Wing once more. He noticed Madam Pomfrey's office was again closed.

Try as he might, Harry couldn't pinpoint from where it was coming from. It seemed to be everywhere at once and the thought sent shivers down his spine as he imagined a deadly creature capable of doing that.

"What's going on?" Luna asked spontaneously, reminding Harry that she was still there. "Who did you hear Harry Potter? Was it a Phantasmal Fireferret? I hear they're quite chatty with certain people."

"Look, Luna, I know you enjoy talking about these animals and such, but listen to me when I tell you to please _shut up._" He said the words in such an angry hiss that he was surprised that it didn't come out in Parseltongue.

The blonde girl seemed to pause in her questioning, and gave him a considering look. "Very well, Harry Potter, but do please tell me afterwards."

"Yeah, sure." Harry muttered in acquiescence, not even paying attention anymore.

How was Luna still calm, he wondered. Harry was practically popping a blood vessel, and she didn't seem to be fazed at all by what just occurred right in front of her. Then again she wasn't the one who had been hearing voices that no one else could hear all year.

Upon revisiting that thought, Harry marked that down as inconclusive.

Suddenly, the Hospital Wing doors burst open, two thirds of the Hogwarts staff entering, with Lockhart being prominently absent.

"Poppy!" McGonagall yelled as she began banging on Madam Pomfrey's office door.

The door to Madam Pomfrey's office essentially vanished then, considering the speed that Madam Pomfrey was now moving towards the assembly of adults.

"What's the situation?" she asked, her voice betraying just how distraught she was.

"We've got another one," Snape said grimly.

Harry, who had long entered back into his bed before anyone looked at him, felt a flurry of panic go through him. He silently wished that Luna wouldn't say a single thing of what just transpired or else who knows what might happen. He noticed that everyone was now gathering around a prone floating form he didn't see as they had entered.

A brief look at the victim's face was all he needed to identify him.

It was the third year, the one he nearly went to fists with earlier that day.

The name finally came to him.

Cormac McLaggen.

**End Chapter 2**

**Author Notes: Cut out Dobby entirely. He's a nice little thing but not useful at the moment.**

**And more angst from Harry, who really is quite the emotionally stunted twerp. Oh, and not a super!Harry fic. This is a normal Harry fic sucking it up and dealing with it.**

**One thing that bothers me quite a bit about Harry Potter fics is how so many of them have Harry suddenly go from average student to top of the class within like a two weeks and then breaking school records or whatever. Granted, a prophecy hanging over your head? Sure, that's good enough motivation. But I sure as hell wouldn't be bothering with History of Magic or even Care of Magical Creatures if that were the case. Never mind how half a dozen or so years in a standard education system would affect the outcome in a face-off with a semi-immortal prodigy wizard who has decades of experience on you. Without adding in power levels or secret heritages a la DBZ, Harry has no chance. So you make him a chakr- pardon, _magic_ juggernaut and hope for the best. The other alternative? He begins to think.**

**Figured I should point this out, as I forgot to do last time. This fic is not a bashing fic. It is not an evil!Dumbledore fic. It is not a Snape-deserves-respect-all-along fic. The is no Ron the Death Eater here. In addition I am incredibly not-fond of leather pants. Those things chafe. Dumbledore is a wizard, a human, and a man who commits too many mistakes without any one to call him out on it. He can still throw down with the best and trash any uppity teens so badly it's not ridiculous. Snape is a bastard. He has always acted like a bastard. Even when he was helping Dumbledore and secretly fighting Voldemort the man was as bastardly as they come. Ron is just the unlucky schmuck to have met Harry first on the train that day. Most friends would give up after one life-threatening ordeal.**

**Don't get me started on Draco.**

**And if the above is any indication of how this fic would go if it were a bashing fic, then you should be thankful this isn't.**

**Also, Luna is fun to write. Which is partially why I'm nervous about writing her, because I'm afraid I'd get carried away. Bear in mind this a younger, more innocent Luna than the one we were introduced to, so she's still quite unaware of how cruel people can be. Hence why she doesn't just drop kick Harry for his attitude...Kidding.**

**Next chapter rewrite should be coming soon.**


	3. Chapter 3: Teatime and The Quibbler

**Chapter 3**

Harry looked at the victim's face, the same face he had wanted to break in that morning. It was now frozen in the unfortunately familiar state of terror of all the other petrified victims. What could cause a person's face to look like that, he wondered. And then he realized he actually didn't want to know.

As the professors fed the school's Healer all the necessary details, Harry listened in as much as he could. Apparently, McLaggen had snuck out of Gryffindor Tower earlier, while the Fat Lady had been not paying attention. A quick detour by one of the professors revealed that the portrait had been heartily enjoying some sangria with her friend Violet. He had been found on the current floor, in the Trophy Room, sprawled out like a stiff mannequin. What he had been doing there, no one knew. It had been Sprout who had found him on her patrol route, and Harry's heart went out to the woman who was quite clearly having trouble holding back tears. She wasn't made for this sort of thing, he decided.

Then again, he supposed no one was. Slytherin's Heir had struck again that night, and the staff's frustration with their futile efforts was more palpable than ever.

Eventually, the staff members noticed that he and Luna were also in the room with that, prompting them to hustle Cormac's still body –_corpse, _a part of him helpfully supplied- into the quarantined area. Eventually, they were far enough away for him to be unable to discern anything they were saying, leaving him and Luna to their own machinations.

Before the girl could fire off any questions of the sort that Harry _knew_ would not be easy to answer, he turned away from her in his bed, and let out a curt, "Good night, Luna."

After a second or two of baited breath on his part, he heard a "Sleep well, Harry Potter" which he took to mean that she was okay with waiting until morning. He really didn't want to give her the story about the mysterious voice; and who knew, maybe the flighty girl would forget about it by sunrise.

Things passed normally after that, but his level of normal meant that his dreams were ever more unpleasant than before, especially with the new material they found in Cormac's lifeless body. And so he stayed awake a few minutes longer, if only to stave off the nightmares a bit.

A part of Harry regretted not decking the prat earlier, but he couldn't muster up any resentment after seeing McLaggen like that. _'What do you see,'_ he thought, _'that leaves you so terrified? So afraid that you don't ever change?'_

He remembered Madam Pomfrey saying that it was very possible the victims were conscious of the actions around them. Merlin, he hoped not. Just that thought of laying there with nothing but their thoughts and the last thing they saw left him sick. They'd have to contract therapists in addition to the Mandragora Potion if they ever wanted to have a hope of functioning properly again.

Frowning, Harry closed his eyes and forced away all such thoughts so he could sleep. It was disturbing how easy it was getting to do that.

* * *

Harry passed the night fitfully. He tossed and turned in his bed, waking up at times only to realize it was still some absurd evil hour of the morning. In his drowsy reverie, he would look at Luna Lovegood, who had taken to sleeping with her head at the foot of the bed, and her feet resting on her pillow.

Shaking his head, he would then return to Morpheus' embrace.

By the time morning came around, Harry was plenty rested in spite of everything, and was able to think more clearly on the previous night's events.

One question that had been nagging at Harry's thoughts had been why all the attacks had resulted in petrification only. He had read up on the last time the Chamber was opened. There had been four attacks, each of which also ended in petrification. The next attack finally killed off a girl who had been using the loo. And upon reanimation the four victims couldn't remember a thing.

And yet here he was, with Ron, Hermione and the others all petrified, but all technically still alive. It niggled at him, but Harry knew that he wouldn't be able to get any answers from just sitting around. He resolved to head out to Hagrid's cabin tonight.

The second matter had been the perpetual question of the dotty Ravenclaw in the next bed over. He regretted acting out as he had when he heard the voice, but in his defense he had been extremely preoccupied with other matters at the time. Now an inquisitive girl with a penchant for questionable beliefs would likely want the full story behind the voice he'd been hearing all year.

This was actually a good thing, he mused. Luna hardly seemed like a credible source of information at first glance, and after spending five minutes with the girl a person would be more likely to walk away rather than suffer through another boggling explanation of the mating habits of some bizarre unpronounceable creature. In fact, it was very lucky that she was the only one nearby when Harry had heard the voice. If Madam Pomfrey had been around, or even just left her door open, he wouldn't be surprised to have awakened in chains that morning.

He didn't imagine the Board of Governors would deign to listen to the words of a mad second year, no matter how famous he might be. Or infamous, as the case might turn out to be, once the information blockade ended.

Luna didn't seem like a bad sort, but her propensity to invade his personal space certainly didn't earn her any points in his book. If the girl weren't so blasted innocent sounding, Harry honestly would have washed his hands of her after last night.

Technically, the option was still there, but the thought of effectively telling her to sod off left a bad taste in his mouth.

Damned if you do, damned if you didn't.

The Hospital Wing was empty for most of the morning, and Harry didn't bother leaving his bed in search of Madam Pomfrey. Experience taught him that the nurse matron would appear when she wanted and not when demanded. Instead, he contented himself with passing the time by reading the issue of the Quibbler that Luna had left on the nightstand between their beds.

The Quibbler was...interesting. There were articles on clothing and fashion, such that Harry was fairly sure that some of it was illegal just out of principle. The columnists had horoscopes, but instead of using zodiac signs as he recalled muggles did, they did it based on how many Sickles a person had in their pockets at the time. And apparently the witches of Glasgow were going to periodically turn into swallows and lay eggs in their home for the next month or so, all to forward the Sect of Wendl's plans towards muggle education reform.

Idly, Harry wondered if it was Luna's quirky personality that led her to reading _The _ _Quibbler_ or if it was the other way around.

"Have you gotten to the Ancient Runes crossword yet, Harry Potter?"

He looked over to see that the subject of his pondering now awake and sitting cross-legged on her bed. He noticed the girl's socks weren't some fantastical arrangement of colors like he expected them to be. That was oddly disappointing.

"Luna," Harry nodded back at her, "good morning."

The girl tilted her head in a very owl-like fashion. "Good 'morrow to you as well. I take it the Yhadks didn't bother you?"

And so it begins.

Giving her an uncertain smile, Harry offered the magazine back to her and said, "No, I don't think so. Yourself?"

The girl let out a hum as she took the Quibbler from him. "They ignored me entirely, so it was quite pleasant. Better than the dorms even."

Now why did that sentence leave him uncomfortable?

They looked at each other for a bit before Harry looked away, suddenly aware that he was staring at her. Luna just laid back down on the bed, holding _The Quibbler_ above her as she read. It took a moment for him to realize that she had the magazine upside down.

Luna did not have time to read much however, as soon Madam Pomfrey arrived, holding a tray of what Harry assumed were potions and medications. Even as the matron approached, his stomach curled in on itself as if trying to hide from the disgusting concoctions.

"Mr. Potter, Ms. Lovegood," Madam Pomfrey began, "good morning to you. Did you sleep well?"

Whereas that question from any other person would be innocuous enough for some to answer truthfully, Harry had enough experience with the nurse to know she was just fishing for something gone wrong just so she could keep them detained in the Hospital Wing longer.

"It was fine," Harry said, exercising caution in his answer, "no headaches or anything."

Madam Pomfrey let out a snort of amusement. "I knew you would say that Mr. Potter. The question was mostly directed to Ms. Lovegood."

The Gryffindor frowned. He didn't think he was that bad a patient.

"It was incredibly resting," Luna said, "even when Ginny came by last night, I went back to sleep very quickly."

For a moment Madam Pomfrey looked displeased with the young Ravenclaw before she covered it up with her usual brusque manner. Harry could only imagine it was because of the Ginny comment, because he certainly couldn't see what the nurse would have to be unhappy with Luna getting a good night's rest.

Laying the two students back down on the beds ("No Miss Lovegood, not like _that_. It ruins your posture."), she began waving her wand over the students, all the while as the smell of the potions wafted over to Harry, who refrained from gagging. Afterwards, Pomfrey mumbled a few words under her breath that Harry didn't quite catch, and began pouring him a dosage of the same potion he'd taken upon his awakening in the Hospital Wing yesterday.

He took the medicine with all the stomach control he could manage, and then remembered something that should have struck him as extremely important before. "What is Verirtisum?" He asked, suddenly attentive. And why was I poisoned with it, he kept to himself.

"It is pronounced Veritaserum," she corrected, "and it is to date the most powerful truth potion in the world as far as we know. However, it's an incredibly complex potion, something that requires years and years of potion-making for anyone to get a handle on."

She elaborated more at seeing the expression on his face. "The potion itself is fairly innocuous and safe when brewed and prescribed correctly. However, when given in incorrect quantities based on the body size, then it can be poisonous. The lethality varies from potion to potion and from person to person.

We're lucky that it was low-grade Veritaserum cooked up by students. Veritaserum acts very much like sugar water the lower in quality it gets, so its danger goes down with it."

"So they weren't intending to poison me then." Harrry stated out loud. Just knowing this gave him some relief. He already had one house-elf eagerly trying to 'help' him by sending virtual cannonballs after him, and an unknown archaic monster to worry about. If he had to add the threat of poisoning to the list he'd start writing up a will.

"That means...what, they thought to interrogate me?" Harry said, more than a bit incensed with his attackers.

Pomfrey only gave him a pitying look before she moved on to explain the rest. "Well, they didn't do any lasting damage, so that will only help them when they're being reviewed by the staff. I imagine the Headmistress is going to want to speak with you again on this matter later today."

"Oh." That's right. They were the ones who were in trouble this time, huh? What a novel experience it was for him. He wondered if this was what being one of the white sheep felt like.

With that being said, after giving Luna another thorough examination and applying some pasty green cream to the few bruises on her person (she _had_ fallen down some stairs), the nurse flicked her wand at the tray, sending it on its way. She let Luna off with a stern instruction to be on the lookout for concussive symptoms and almost reluctantly gave the girl a discharge notice for around lunchtime.

Harry, on the other hand, had to stay in for at least another few hours just so she could keep an eye on him in case of any delayed reactions to the potions.

Eventually, the woman bustled off to the quarantined area of the Hospital Wing, where she now had one more patient to take care of. This left Harry and Luna once again alone and surrounded by the kind of awkwardness found only in pre-teens and their ilk. Luna still had to wait for her escort back to the Ravenclaw common room, and he was stuck there with nothing productive to do. With it being the weekend, Harry would have protested being held back from leaving earlier, but the new regulations restricted students to their respective Houses when classes were not in session.

"So, what did Ginny come for last night?" Harry began, hoping to distract Luna from any thoughts of the mysterious voice. At the same time, he was a little bit worried for his best friend's sister.

"Mmmhm, she didn't say," she replied airily, "she's been awfully shy with me lately. But I did see Madam Pomfrey come back with some Dreamless Sleep Potions, so I gather she's been having trouble with that."

He tried to remember if they had covered Dreamless Sleep Potions yet. Even if they had though, his Potions knowledge was woefully lacking. "How'd you know it was that?"

The Ravenclaw girl laid back on the bed, leaving her legs hanging out from the side. "I used to take those potions, and I recognized the scent and the color. Madam Pomfrey's instructions on what to do also sounded familiar."

Seriously doubting Luna would have seen the color of the potion in the nighttime lighting _and_ recognized a smell that easily, Harry decided to let it be. "And you didn't talk with her at all?"

"Not a word. I even said hello first. She just arrived here with Professor Lockhart and talked with Madam Pomfrey." Perhaps unsurprisingly, Luna did not sound offended at all. "After she got the potions, she left."

Harry blinked. That was awfully rude of her. The youngest Weasley was generally courteous to him and the other students, if a bit withdrawn. He usually just put that up to typical first year nervousness. He recalled his own anxiety while talking with most of the other students in his first year.

Suddenly, Luna giggled. "I think I felt a few Wrackspurts flying around Professor Lockhart last night. He certainly seemed distracted enough when he got here. Kept talking quite loudly about his next book."

Personally, Harry didn't see the humor in any of that. Having Ginny be escorted by a distracted Lockhart of all people was practically asking for an attack. Strange though, he would think the man would at least learn the value of discretion, especially since he'd been saying the attacks had all stopped after Hagrid had been arrested. Then again, this was Lockhart.

"She likes you by the way," She said matter-of-factly.

Doing a mental double-take, Harry quickly deduced who she was referring to.

"Ginny, right?" At Luna's nod, the boy looked down at the ground, hoping she wouldn't see his flushed cheeks. "Yeah, I managed to figure that out after I spent a bit of time at the Burrow last summer. She...uh…made it really obvious." Not that he wasn't flattered.

He looked up and noticed her more intense than usual stare.

"So _you're_ the reason she was so fluttered last summer." She said in the voice of one who'd just made a great discovery, "Thank goodness! I had thought a Smawkroc had marked its territory around her house. But it's just those Who Mones that mummy used to talk to daddy about, unless….you're not secretly a Smawkroc are you?" The last part was asked with surprising fervor.

What the hell were Who Mones, he wondered, and why was this girl so focused on these animals of hers. Nevertheless, despite his hold on the conversation quickly diminishing, Harry managed to tell her no, he was not a Smawkroc, and to please stop acting like she just escaped a room with padded white walls.

Well, that last part was an option he would definitely take sometime in the near future if the flow between them stayed as it was.

And then came act two of the awkward silence.

"So-"

"Did a Phantasmal Fireferret really talk to you last night?" She suddenly cut in. "Because you see, my daddy has always wanted pictures and to conduct an interview with one of them, and I was wondering if you could persuade her to agree."

Caught off guard, Harry flailed around the verbal barrage until he finally grasped a single word. "Her?"

"Yes. The Fireferrets are an all female species. They get together with the Nargles in the fall to switch species."

"Umm no, sorry Luna, I wasn't talking with a Fireferret." And as he said this, part of him really couldn't believe that he was avoiding this golden opportunity to fool her. The thought of tricking her like that though, just seemed inherently wrong. No matter how much more precarious his situation with the school Governors might get by letting this virtual stranger know, it didn't feel right.

The girl looked disappointed for a moment, but quickly recovered her half-smile. "I should have realized that. Fireferrets are notorious for avoiding moody people."

"…moody, huh?"

"Yes, moody. I've noticed you even scrunch your nose when you're thinking about something unpleasant. Yes, just like that."

"Never mind," He said, more to himself than to her. He could feel the edges of exhaustion seeping in just from talking to her. "I just thought you wanted to know the story." Not that he was going to complain if she dropped it.

But as Luna leaned forward from her seat on the bed, curiosity shining, Harry resigned himself to telling the truth to the dimwitted girl.

Checking to see Madam Pomfrey wasn't nearby, he began his tale.

He kept to the bare minimum of course, but midway through the explanation he realized that the bare minimum was really all he had to tell. He told her of the voice, and when he first heard it. He told of how it kept preceding the attacks, which led him to believe it had something to do with Chamber of Secrets. He even openly theorized that it might be the Heir of Slytherin himself taunting Harry.

Luna herself kept mostly quiet throughout the whole thing, her expression blank as ever. At one point she had let out a contemplative hum, but beyond that she was as talkative as the Giant Squid. Not even the ruffle of her breathing was that noticeable. Harry had to admit, as much fun as talking with Ron and Hermione might be, there was something nice about having someone pay attention to the story so intently.

He periodically checked around to make sure that Madam Pomfrey was not listening in on them. Due to yesterday's events, paranoia would likely be his bread and butter for the next few days. He resolved to later look up a spell that would check for potions in his food and drink.

When he finished, the first thing to come out of Luna's mouth was not what he expected from the curious girl.

"You're a very lonely person, aren't you Harry Potter?"

And he gaped at her. Real, honest, eyes wide, mouth hung open gaping. Both at the audacity it took and the complete disregard for what she'd just been told. And if that weren't all, she was giving him a nice cheery smile, pearly whites and everything. He didn't know whether to hit her, or himself.

"But thank you." And here she paused, as if considering her next words. "You could have lied but I don't think you did, so thank you, even if you're only just using me." And at this point she returned to reading the Quibbler, now in her lap.

The beginnings of a headache started making itself known to Harry, who ended up pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort to stave it off. "Luna...I'm…you're…look, aren't you concerned about what I just told you _at all?_"

The blonde girl looked up at him from her reading. "Not really. In fact, I think you, and probably Ronald and Hermione Granger have worried too much. It's not like you're the first person to hear things that you can't see. I myself like to think I can hear my mummy in my dreams."

"Sure," Harry said hotly, "but those are dreams and you're mum is real! The voice comes when I'm awake, but half the time I can't tell if it really happened or not!" What in damnation would it take to actually surprise this girl? She was a veritable mountain of levelheadedness.

"My mummy is dead, Harry Potter," she said offhandedly as she looked outside the window, "but it doesn't mean her words are any less real."

And with that sucker punch to the soul, Luna took out a quill from her bookbag and turned back to reading _The Quibbler_ in her lap.

This left Harry to himself, and his incredible burning desire for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

* * *

The rest of their time waiting was spent with Luna immersed in her magazine, and with Harry reluctantly doing some his outstanding homework. Neither of them said anything of real worth in the meanwhile, even when Madam Pomfrey had brought them breakfast. They both passed the time in silence, eating their fruits and oatcakes whilst thinking about other things.

Eventually came the point where Professor McGonagall entered the Hospital Wing. Harry wondered what she was doing there, when classes were supposed to be going on, only for him to remember it was the weekend, and that she likely had business with him.

(It occurred to him that it had already been a week without Ron and Hermione by his side.)

The Transfigurations Professor gestured for him to follow her. Dropping his quill and parchment, Harry got out of bed and followed the newly appointed Headmistress to one of the doors he'd never seen open before. When he got before the door, there was a slight _puff_ that seemed to come from all sides, followed by the feeling of air lightly blowing on his face. His cheeks were starting to tingle.

"That was just a small Ill-Intent Purger you stepped through, Mr. Potter," McGonagall provided as they entered the rather cozy room. There was a sofa, and a table, for some reason with tea set already, "So long as you and I remain within the boundaries of this room, we will feel discouraged from being actively harmful to each other."

Harry was alarmed. "Isn't that a lot like mind-control, Professor?" He asked, thinking of several ways such a thing could be misused.

His Head of House shook her head, and gestured for Harry to sit down across from her at the table. "Not quite, Mr. Potter. If anything, it's more of a method of enforcing neutral grounds. It is not the mind or the thoughts of the individuals that are targeted, but the actions themselves. And even then, it is only the overt exertion of physical force or magic on another person that is subject of restriction."

That explanation did little to assuage his fears. While Harry could see the value in having a place where violence of any kind was discouraged, enforcing the concept through magic just tainted the idea behind it.

"You have little to worry though," McGonagall continued, probably noticing the scowl on his face, "this sort of magic is something of a lost art to modern magical society. In fact, I'd say there are little under a dozen or so of the Purgers around the world, three of which are located right here at Hogwarts. This one in particular was for the more…trying patients from the Founder's era.

"But that is a story for another time," she said, pouring two cups of tea and passing one to him, "I'm afraid my purpose here is regarding the three responsible for your unfortunate stay here."

Harry kept his face blank. "What would you have me do, Professor?"

Professor McGonagall raised the cup to her lips and sipped a bit before speaking once more. Not wanting to seem rude by rejecting the tea, Harry imitated her actions. After a moment of appreciation, she answered simply. "Forgive them."

"Professor, they tried to _poison_ me."

"They tried to question you, you mean." McGonagall's reply was sharp and swift. "Their actions were foolish and poorly planned, but such are the follies of youth."

He had to put down the teacup lest he break it in his current state. "You're making it sound like they just put a Dungbomb in my bag. The potions in my body respectfully disagree with your assessment."

"2 points from Gryffindor for your cheek, Mr. Potter." The reply came like a whip, "Kindly remember that I am not Professor Dumbledore. I will not tolerate such disrespect."

Harry scowled down at the tea in his cup. "I'm sorry."

"No, no you aren't," and here Harry looked up at the woman, "but that hardly matters at the moment. Currently the three Hufflepuff students who assaulted you are in their dorms, awaiting the final decision. Obviously the Board of Governors have heard of the events of yesterday, and are currently breathing down my neck to resolve the matter as quickly as possible."

McGonagall looked at him dead in the eye. "And they wanted to weigh in your opinion on the matter as well, Mr. Potter. Veritaserum is a volatile and potentially illegal substance for a reason. To use it on another student as they did was crossing not just school rules, but also several laws. They are in serious consideration for expulsion."

There was that blasted word again.

"Why is it that suddenly I'm of interest to these Governors, Headmistress," Harry said challengingly, "Why have I never heard of them before?"

The older woman pursed her lips at the mocking use of her new title, but didn't chastise him on it. "Because I am not as capable as Albus Dumbledore, nor do I hold any illusions of being so. The Headmaster has shielded you, and many of the other prominent students from much of the politicking surrounding Hogwarts, but now that we find ourselves without him we must move forward."

Could he do it? Could he really expel three people from Hogwarts all based on his need for, in his own opinion, well-deserved revenge? Harry had looked into the expulsion protocols once in his spare time as a first-year. Any other school they attended, if any, would note in their records that they were Hogwarts rejects, leaving them with an official lifetime stigma. They'd have to get a new wand, likely leave the country to finish an education, and suffer through the humiliation of being expelled from the school.

Harry recalled Hagrid and his totally not-magical umbrella. The man was incredibly good-natured and friendly, but any talk about his education brought a sort of hardness to his eyes; it was the kind of grim acceptance that Harry had seen in the mirror many times before he had even met the giant man. Before magic came and took him away.

The older woman before him sipped her tea while he thought. She did not press him, and for that he was grateful, but neither did she let up on staring him down.

"Professor, did they really make the potion themselves?" Harry asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it anyways.

McGonagall smiled, likely catching the resignation in his tone. "Yes. It took them the better part of the school year, meaning they had started on the potion around Halloween. If I weren't so furious with them, I'd be impressed with their capabilities. Even a poor-quality version of Veritaserum is challenging for most Potions Masters. That they managed it as sixth years says good things for their future careers."

He actually hadn't needed all that information, but it did serve to relax some of the tenseness in his shoulders.

Three students concocted a potion far beyond their normal abilities in an effort to unveil the Heir of Slytherin? The idea would have sounded ridiculous to Harry had he not done the same thing a few weeks ago.

"Fine." He muttered. "Let them off."

The former deputy beamed at him.

"Just let them know they owe me." Harry told her, suddenly drained and weary. "And that they better think before doing something like that again." _'Hypocrite,' _his mind helpfully supplied, reminding him of his plans to visit Hagrid's cabin.

But Professor McGonagall kept smiling. "And once again, you have made me proud to have you in my house, Mr. Potter."

"Can I just ask one thing?" Harry said evasively, "If I had said to expel them, what would have happened?"

"Well, I imagine the three would be leaving on the Hogwarts Express tomorrow, and the Board would be crowing about you being a selfish vengeful child, making my job all the much harder."

McGonagall's reply was so succinct and well-formed Harry suspected that she had it prepared beforehand. Even so, at least the woman was upfront with him.

"But couldn't you have just told them that you wouldn't expel anyone to begin with?"

The Scotswoman chuckled. "You will find that often times, telling someone 'No' is a lot harder than it might seem."

'_Tell me about it.'_

"Had I done that, they'd be very tempted to remove me from office, something which they clearly don't want to do as I'm quite literally the best candidate for the position of Headmaster in this school. Not to mention the blow that Hogwarts' reputation would take after removing the Headmaster not once, but twice within the span of a month."

"So it worked out best for you in the long run." Harry said, fighting the urge to frown at McGonagall. It wouldn't do him any good to be upset now.

The Gryffindor Head of House chuckled. "The Board may be full of men with too-round middles or too-little teeth, but many of them quite enjoy old stories of honor. You've helped yourself as well."

"I guess." He said with a shrug.

The Professor got up from the table and went for the door. "Oh and Mr. Potter?" She said, grabbing his attention once more, "2 points to Gryffindor for your excellent table manners. Now come along, I'll escort you and Miss Lovegood to the Great Hall. It's almost suppertime and I imagine Poppy's mothering is getting to you."

Harry followed after her, caught between annoyance and pleasantly surprise.

What a mad old biddy his new Headmistress was turning out to be.

* * *

Upon arriving at the Great Hall, he and Luna ended up splitting ways as one headed towards red and gold, and the other blue and black. He had not seen any of the Hufflepuff's that had accidentally poisoned him when he returned from the Hospital Wing. He imagined that they had probably not been feeling up to eating while knowing there was a very good chance they could be expelled. He could sympathize.

Unfortunately for Harry that night the Fat Lady was at her post, standing far more vigilant and sober than she'd ever had before. Harry had heard she had received an incredible chastisement for failing to notify the others of McLaggen's departure. This meant that any attempt to visit Hagrid's cabin would have to wait until such a date that the portrait was too preoccupied to notice his exit.

Not for the first time, Harry wanted kick McLaggen in the nads.

It was Sunday that the three missing badger's came out of their hidey-holes and showed up at their table for breakfast. Harry caught the eye of one of them, and nodded in response to the Puff's own. He neither wanted nor needed any sort of public affirmation of their gratitude. It would only attract attention to him and bring him into the spotlight even more. So long as they remembered who they had to thank he would be content.

The rest of the day passed normally, with him spending most of it just doing schoolwork by the fire or staring at the flames. By the end of the day, Harry was sure the rumors of yesterday had all suddenly gained a new twist on them. Whether positive or negative, Harry didn't know, as no one was willing to talk with him to confirm. And it seemed his compatriots (ie: the three Hufflepuffs) were also being tight-lipped about it.

He eventually realized that day that he didn't actually know their names, a fact he was glad no one else seemed to catch on to.

Suppertime came, and once again, Harry tried to shut out all the talking and laughing going on around him. The Great Hall seemed livelier than it had in days, even with the news of another petrified student. It did not feel right to be there, with everyone else, sans his two best friends. In fact, it was a deeply unsettling sensation, one that chewed away at his appetite voraciously.

Putting his head in his arms on the table, Harry closed his eyes and pretended to ignore the world.

Suddenly, the sound of someone dropping to sit down next to him alerted him of a new presence. Actually, the entire area around him was full of vacant seats, so having someone sit down next to him all of a sudden was strange.

Lifting his head to get a look at the newcomer, Harry found himself looking at a miniaturized radish earring.

_'Oh no,' _He thought dazedly. Regaining his bearings he noticed the person the radish earring was attached to.

"Pass the potatoes, Harry Potter," she asked with a sort of blank smile.

He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Checked his glasses. Then blinked again.

"Luna? What are you doing here?" he asked hurriedly in a hushed voice. By now, people were beginning to stare.

"I'm eating," She replied vaguely.

He just continued to stare at her. He had a small feeling that she was setting him up for a laugh, but he dismissed that. Luna's idea of humor was hardly that embarrassing to be on the end of, even if he did always feel like he missed the punch-line.

"You do know this is the Gryffindor table right?" He asked slowly.

She nodded.

He rubbed his temples; the stress had been accumulating and this was not doing any wonders for it. "Any other reason, aside from eating, that you are sitting here?"

Nodding, she began chewing on a piece of meat on her plate. Harry waited for her to answer when she was done, but as soon as she was done with that piece, she moved on to the next one.

Now certain she was messing with him, he decided to try again. "What is this reason, aside from enjoying your food, that is responsible for your presence?"

Luna looked at him straight in the eye. "Isn't it obvious? You looked lonely."

The kids around them snickered. Harry, who had been putting up with it non-stop for the past week, found he didn't want to care anymore. Tired as he was of all the whispers and pointed looks, the gossip was finally plateauing. Nevertheless, he suddenly felt an intense dislike for the ones around them.

"Look Luna, you don't have to stay around me, just because you feel sorry for me." He said, glaring in the direction of anyone looking at them. While eating at different tables was not uncommon, it had mostly fallen out of practice as of late. The attacks had had the side effect of encouraging intra-House unity to an enormous extent, and that resulted in people rarely sitting down to eat at another table anymore.

But the girl shook her head and refused to leave. "If I sat down with everybody I felt sorry for, I would never be sitting with the same person twice. That would be awfully tiresome and I'm pretty sure I would start mixing whose nose went with what eyes, and that's too troublesome."

Harry rolled his eyes at the explanation, though he did take notice of what she was implying with that sentence. "And I suppose your friends don't mind you spending with the 'Heir of Slytherin'?" He said, marking the quotation with his fingers.

"Not at all," she said as she took a bite out of some of the chicken sandwich she had made from the dinner table options, "I already know you are not the Heir of Slytherin. You aren't eight feet tall and violet skinned, which makes you at best an Illegitimate Offspring of Slytherin."

"Nice to know you think so highly of me," Harry grumbled while picking at his food.

"And as for the matter of friends," Luna plowed on, "I don't really have any."

That was two for two for extremely awkward and uncomfortable facts that Luna just mentioned out of the blue. Harry was once again at that familiar point of being at a loss with the girl. What exactly could anyone say to that?

However, this sudden but not entirely unexpected revelation told him that perhaps there was more meaning in her actions than what she proclaimed to be, or even seemed to think there was.

Surveying his surroundings, Harry noticed that most of the attention was now on Luna, and it was certainly not positive. While it wasn't entirely negative either, it would be a stretch to even say that the good and bad were evenly spread. Spying a very expressive Ravenclaw student with wild gesticulating hands as he went on describing something, Harry managed to make out him saying "Loony Lovegood" with enough clarity, only for him to realize the unflattering moniker was being dropped in conversation all around them.

"Harry Potter?" She poked him with the knife.

Startled, Harry turned to her. "Yeah?"

"You stopped responding to my questions." She explained, "Do you think Professor Flitwick might be in communication with the Figglenorf Nations stationed in Hogsmeade?"

I…don't know." He replied lamely. Actually he thought that there was nothing of the sort in Hogsmeade to begin with but that would only invite a debate he would not and could not win. "But you know what? Why don't you just call me Harry from now on? Using my full name all the time can be boring."

Luna looked intrigued at the prospect. "Really? I didn't know that. Is that why almost everybody calls each other by one name?"

"Sure, let's go with that."

**End Chapter 3**

**Author Notes: First truly majorly rewritten chapter is out here.**

**One of the major things that a few people pointed out to me in the last version of this fic is that I have a tendency to treat you, the readers, with kiddy gloves and walk you through anything and everything. I've been trying to cut down on that, but if you guys happen to notice that, please let me know somehow, so I can terminate it with extreme prejudice. And explosives.**

**Harry's choice is something that I imagine might gather controversy among some readers, which is good. I like controversy. Far as I can see there was no truly right answer to his decision. Just one that worked out more to his benefit than another. And I wanted to draw a parallel between him, Ron, and Hermione, and the Puff trio. Will his attitude about such things change? Maybe. **

**More Luna, of course. More hammer-to-the-face-bluntness and more Harry learning of what really happens to those in the Headmaster's seat. Now, the Board of Governor's is not meant to be some council of EVULZ, but more along the lines of opportunistic rich fucks taking advantage of Dumbledore's absence. That's one thing that I wanted to make absolutely clear, so any critiquing on that would be much appreciated. **

**I wonder if anyone else has questioned the immense dislike many have towards the Hogwarts student population in general. Harry's a fucking celebrity, so of course he's going to go through the usual ups and downs of a famous persons life, whether he wants to or not. Having a permanent grudge over what are essentially petty schoolyard spats up to fourth year, and mass-scaled propaganda inspired resentment in fifth year, seems just as lame, barring major differences like the whole student population twirling their handlebar mustaches and eating puppies. People fuck up a lot as kids. Hell, people screw things up fantastically even as adults.**

**Next chapter rewrite should be coming out in a few days.**


	4. Chapter 4: Cloak and Magic

**Chapter 4**

Three days later, Harry was ready to pull his hair out in frustration.

In a show of uncommon sobriety, the Fat Lady was still as vigilant as when she began taking her job of watchdog seriously. But despite how much he appreciated the fickle bint finally taking her job seriously, it really couldn't have happened at a more inopportune time. Hagrid's cabin remained unexplored, the end of the semester was fast approaching, and the Heir of Slytherin was no closer to being uncovered than before. And Harry didn't even want to think of what would happen to Hogwarts once the general public learned the truth surrounding the petrified victims, if the culprit were still at large.

Harry didn't have much hope of any of the petrified victims remembering just what the hell Slytherin's monster had been either. Fifty years ago, there had been an inconvenient case of selective amnesia in all of them, and he'd bet the same would happen this time. The only one he could imagine might remember would be Nearly-Headless Nick, and that's because, being dead -or at least a very good imitation of the dead- probably put him under special circumstances. In fact, Harry often wondered how they would give the Mandrake potion to a _ghost_ of all things.

Regardless his vexation with his own lack of progress on that front, things had begun slowly improving. Luna had taken to sitting with him at all meals, suddenly occupying one of the many noticeable empty spots around him whenever he sat down in the Great Hall. None of the other students really gave them much trouble for that, seeing as how they were all too busy with revision for the end of term exams.

Surprisingly, exams were still scheduled as usual. This left the fifth and seventh year students on the verge of breakdowns, especially considering how their O.W.L's and N.E.W.T's were only two weeks away. Matters of the Heir and the Chamber suddenly found themselves pushed to the back of their minds as students began the almost ritualistic panicky cramming before exam periods.

That was perfectly fine with Harry, who was sick of everyone treating him like a leper. He could finally ask his housemates to pass the salt without worrying about them throwing it in his face or such tosh. Admittedly, there was always a chance they would temporarily break free from their manic revision to realize who he was, but most of the times they'd just look at him like he was some sort of ephemeral spirit.

This of course, didn't stop Harry from grinning whenever he saw a particularly frantic student break out into tears. Part of him felt guilty, but he felt that some measure of vindictive amusement had been earned. Ironically, after the whole year he'd had, study period was turning out to be incredibly cathartic. Even so, whenever he was by himself in Gryffindor tower he began felt the weight of exams press in around him. Without Hermione, the material was much harder to comprehend than before, which wasn't to say that Harry was having trouble; he was just attempting to maintain the same pace of he'd been at when working together with his friends. Not to mention the stacks of homework the professors kept passing out, with no end to it all in sight.

Perhaps they were hoping to distract the Heir of Slytherin from hurting any more students by inundating them all with homework, Harry mused. It was certainly working if that was the intention; matters of the Chamber were slowly fading into the background with each passing day.

The only exception was Professor Lockhart, who had taken to raving on and on about his new book he intended to publish. He continued regaling his classes with details and reenactments of his books, but the difference now was that the man would occasionally stop at random times and suddenly start writing in his pocketbook.

His class was the only one without any large assignments though, giving the man's previously dying popularity among the student population a very much-unneeded boost. Surprisingly though, the egotistical poofter did not seem to notice this very much.

However, even with the steadily improving treatment from the other students, and the day of Ron and Hermione's cure not too far off, Harry could not shake the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach that kept increasing by the day. End of term meant that students would be sent back home, and Harry would be sent back to the Dursleys, with no certainty that Hogwarts would reopen in the fall.

So, instead of waiting for the Fat Lady to fall to temptation once more, he decided it was time to learn some magic.

* * *

"Between twitchy nosehairs, and a set of gills, which would you prefer?" Luna asked without deviating from the issue of _The Quibbler _in front of her.

"Gills." Harry said absently, he himself not looking up from his own reading.

Beside him, he heard the Ravenclaw girl write something down on a piece of parchment that she had put aside for some reason. He didn't know what she was doing, or even what she was thinking of for that matter, but he tried not to think about it too hard. Trying to understand the meaning behind many of the girl's actions often left his mind thinking in Escher puzzles.

She had been adamant that he answered the questions when he sat down for lunch with her. That had been fifteen minutes ago. Since then, it had been query after query, none of it seemingly related.

Finally she said something else. "How odd."

Harry looked up from his book, making a mental note of where he left off. "What's odd?" he asked, truly curious despite his misgivings. For Luna to say that, it had to be something outlandish indeed.

"This quiz I had you take," Luna said, a concerned look on her face. "The results don't make any sense."

Harry managed to cover his snort by faking cough. There were more things than a quiz that didn't make any sense within the confines of the Quibbler, but he wasn't going to tell her that. The one time he had suggested that the Quibbler might be more fictitious than strictly necessary Luna's polite disagreement had toed the edge of frigidness carefully.

So instead of voicing his opinion on the veracity of her preferred form of literature, he instead said, "Do you want me to take it again?"

Luna shook her head thoughtfully. "It's not necessary. The questions can only be asked once a day, after all. The shifts in the clouds don't let them happen twice."

Looking up at the ceiling and noticing the clear cloudless sky, Harry said nothing to that. After all, there had to clouds somewhere in the world, right?

"What are you working on?" Luna asked suddenly, startling him. "You've been looking at the same few spells since you've arrived." It had sounded almost offhanded when she said it like that.

Harry shrugged. "Just revising a few spells for exams," he lied.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Luna with knowing what he was studying, but, well, she was Luna. For all his misgivings about her, the Gryffindor had a suspicion that the girl was sharper than she let on. And if she learned just what spells he had been learning, Harry imagined she might just guess exactly what he was learning them _for_.

And the last thing he wanted was to have someone know and try to discourage him from doing it. Or worse, join him.

"I don't understand why everyone is so worried about the end-of-term," Luna commented as she helped herself to some bacon. "We all had a year to prepare for them."

This coming from someone who purportedly had difficulty in class without the use of recordings stored in her earrings was rather perplexing.

"Not everybody studies everyday," Harry pointed out.

Luna actually seemed surprised for real. "Really?"

He gave her a strange look. "Yes, really."

"That's not very responsible though," Luna remarked, "But I imagine that the Plimplies just love all that knowledge that dribbles out of their heads. Should I start doing that too?"

"I don't think that that's why everybody slacks off," he said, wondering how he could explain sheer laziness and procrastination to the girl. "It's just that everyone else thinks they can do it later, and would rather do other stuff. Haven't you ever thought like that?"

The Ravenclaw girl smiled. "How odd. I can't say I have, there's not really much else to do in Ravenclaw Tower."

Harry squirmed in his seat a bit. He imagined that it wasn't the Tower itself that was lacking, but its occupants instead. Even if Ravenclaws had a reputation for being bookish, they too liked a good game of Exploding Snaps or pick-up Quidditch, so it wasn't like there was a lack of interest in the House.

"Right. Um. Okay." Harry fumbled for the right words. "Then I guess you're all set for your exams then."

"Hmm, not quite," she corrected, "I'm afraid all the professors keep giving me zeroes on my assignments. I don't imagine the exams are going to be any different."

"Well, aren't you hopeful."

"I agree, I'm not expecting anything fortuitous."

He really should have known better than to use sarcasm with Luna. Chuckling, Harry began putting his book away in his bag. Lunch was already over and it was time for afternoon classes to start. And joy of joys, his next class was History of Magic, followed by Herbology with the Hufflepuffs.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You're a very odd person, Harry, I hope you know that."

He mulled over that for a bit, not sure if it was a compliment or not. Before he could ask, Luna had already picked up her things and left to join the orderly queue of first year Ravenclaws at the Great Hall's entrance.

It was never easy to tell with Luna, but he didn't think he'd offended her. If so, she'd have told him point-blank, if only because she liked sharing her thoughts. So for her to say he was odd was high praise indeed.

As he joined the Gryffindors in their excursion towards their next class, he thought back to the book he'd been reading. The spells in it just seemed entirely out of his league at first, but fortunately Harry had been able to find a few things that would be useful. Now the matter was just to practice them. Sadly, he couldn't really go around asking for help from any of the older students, partly because they were too busy with their own work, and partly because he didn't trust them to not be suspicious.

They arrived at the classroom in time to see Binns floating up through the floor. Everyone silently shuffled into their seats, the scraping wooden chairs only highlighting the quiet in the room. Already, Harry had to stifle a yawn. The classroom was located on the west side of the castle, putting it squarely in place to receive the lazy afternoon sun's rays. Combined with Binns' dull drawl, it was a miracle anyone managed to take notes.

Normally, Harry wouldn't even bother taking out his quill and parchment, usually opting to sit down and wait for the period to end. However, today he took out the book he'd been reading at lunch. This time, he also brought out his wand and began moving it according to the illustrations in the book.

A few people in the class gave him curious looks, but none of them said a thing about it. Which was perfectly fine with Harry. He was sitting at the back of the class so as to escape Binns' notice, and they all probably thought he was revising anyways. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Parvati take out a book for another class.

With a flick and a jab towards his desk, he spoke the spell as loudly as he dared without alerting the others. There were no flashes of light, for which Harry was grateful. Visible, loud, _bright_ magic was not something he would be able to get away with in class, especially History of Magic.

Harry gave it a second before he knocked on the top of the desk. At the sound of his knuckles brushing on the wood, Harry sighed, and reread the last few passages from _The Standard Book of Spells Grade 5_. Percy had been kind enough to lend the book to him, seeing as how most of it was covered in the next level up, and because Harry had voiced an interest in earning extra credit on his exams. The prefect had been glad to see Harry working on his education and keeping out of trouble, and even said this to the boy when he handed the book over.

After that, Harry could understand the Weasley' twins' need to heckle Percy more than the rest of their siblings. The male prefect could be true prick if he wanted to.

The rest of the class passed much in the same way of Harry practicing, failing, and then trying again. It was actually rather exhausting work since his concentration kept wandering off due to the environment around him. Students had long given up writing by the end of class, and even Parvati who had managed to last longer in her drive to review lessons couldn't resist the soporific atmosphere.

But by the end of the lesson, Harry could confidently say that he was getting the hang of the Silencing Charm.

* * *

Harry supposed that he shouldn't have been surprised when eventually one of the other students confronted him about being the Heir of Slytherin again. Despite his highest hopes, the students of Hogwarts would not forget who the object of their ire was that easily. And Harry was rudely reminded of this when Susan Bones 'accidentally' dropped a pot of shrivelfigs on his foot.

Leaping back, Harry made sure not to drop his own pot as well. Shrivelfigs were completely harmless for the most part, but a good ten pounds of pot and contents on one's foot wasn't.

"Sorry," Susan said, "my hands slipped."

In Harry's opinion, she would have sounded a whole lot more sincere if she hadn't been glaring at him the entire time. He just shrugged and said that it was okay. That just seemed to make it worse, judging by the reddening of her face.

On her way back to get another pot, Susan brushed quite forcefully against his shoulder, causing him to stumble and nearly drop his pot again.

Harry grit his teeth but said nothing. He had long since given up on reasoning with the Hufflepuffs. That did not mean he wasn't affected by what they did, but Sisyphus would have better luck than with them.

"Sorry about her," someone said from behind him. Harry looked to see it was Ernie MacMillan. "She's just been really stressed lately."

The Gryffindor boy scowled. "We all are. That doesn't mean anything."

"I know, I know," Ernie said, not looking the least bit chastised. "It's just, Susan's been really out of it since Justin got…you know."

"Your point being?" Harry grouched. Not even bothering to give the other boy a chance to answer, Harry went back to tending to his plant.

Ernie came up and began working beside him. "My point being that she's not really thinking straight."

Harry took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Look, are you just here to justify Susan's behavior? Because if so, thank you. I get it. She doesn't like me and she's stressed. That describes most of the school right now and-"

"Would you just _listen _to me, Potter?" The Hufflepuff snapped. "I'm here to apologize if you don't really get it."

There was a moment of quiet.

"Susan's not thinking right, at the moment. She knows something bad is going to happen if the Heir isn't caught soon," Ernie elaborated. "She's just worried about it. And….I'm sorry." The last part was said quickly.

"What?"

"I'm sorry for thinking you were the Heir." Ernie muttered. Harry snuck a glance away from his work, and saw the shamefaced look on the other boy's face. "It was rude of me, and I shouldn't have treated you the way I did. Sorry."

"You should have trusted me," Harry said stonily, unsure whether to believe the sincerity of it or not.

To his surprise though, instead of agreeing with him, Ernie instead said, "No, I shouldn't have."

Harry frowned.

"You have to understand Harry, we don't know anything about you." Ernie began, awkwardly fumbling over his words as he tried explaining. "All we know is the you're the Boy-Who-Lived, that you're in Gryffindor, and that you're good at Quidditch. That's it."

Part of Harry vehemently protested the idea, but he let Ernie continue. "You disappear from the world for 10 years, and we have nothing but books and hearsay to go on. But then one day you show up at Hogwarts, no longer smoke and mirrors, but quiet and honestly kind of short. And then you start doing crazy and stupid things, things no one is supposed to do."

"Like what?" Harry said challengingly.

"Like bringing an illegal dragon to the top of the Astronomy Tower so that it could be smuggled somewhere." Ernie pointed out. "Or protecting the Philosopher's Stone from Professor Quirrel last year –which by the way, I still don't believe."

"But it's true!"

"To you, maybe." The Hufflepuff countered calmly, "But the records say that Professor Quirrel resigned because he was afraid the vampire that was after him would soon come and start hurting the students."

Harry's head spun at the news. He'd never bothered to look up the official documents detailing the man after his death, but he'd always just assumed that they would tell the whole story.

"Which brings me to my original point," the other boy continued. "All this stuff, all the talk about dragons and flying cars and whatnot, they're all just stories. We have no concrete proof that you did any of that. And it's not like you go out of your way to make yourself approachable either. Don't give me that look," he said upon seeing Harry's reaction to that, "When was the last time you spent time with anyone not in Gryffindor outside of class, _not_ including that Ravenclaw girl?"

"It's not exactly like people have been jumping up lately to spend time with me, in case you haven't noticed."

Ernie rolled his eyes, and Harry resisted the urge to punch the pompousness right out of him. "Before this whole mess, then? Look the point is, all we really know is that you're involved in a lot of things that you really shouldn't be, and that doesn't lend credence to your claims of being innocent."

The two of them took a break to bring their pots back to their respective wshing stations. They had taken longer than was usual to cut off the offshoot roots from their shrivelfigs, but they weren't strapped for time or anything. Plus, this gave Harry some time to meditate on what the other boy had been saying. After a few minutes of running the figs under the water, Harry returned to the same table as before.

Ernie didn't say anything, but Harry got the impression he was now waiting for a response.

"Okay."

"Okay?" came the other boy's confused reply.

"Okay," Harry affirmed, "I accept you're apology. Just tell me, why did you change your mind?"

The other boy looked away from Harry's face. "Because yesterday I saw you and Lovegood eating together at lunch, and I realized that if I were the Heir of Slytherin on a mission to 'purify' the school, shutting it down is the last thing I would plan on. Not to mention, you love this place."

Harry wasn't paying attention to that last sentence, having nearly cut himself with the knife he'd been using. "_Shut down Hogwarts?_" Harry whispered his loudest voice. "Why the hell would they close the school?"

The other boy gave him a pitying look now. "Because there's no way the Department of Magical Law Enforcement would let this school stay open if there's a killer here. They've already given the staff until the end of the semester to find the culprit, and well, look at how that's turning out."

"What? Since when? And how do you know this?" Harry asked, thoughts whirling as he processed all this new information being thrown at him. Didn't McGonagall say that they had to wait 'til Dumbledore came back or something?

Ernie shook his head, again pityingly. It didn't look like he was going to say anything, leaving Harry about to sock the boy, but he opened his mouth in time. "Since Professor Dumbledore left, I think. Before that, the DMLE was okay with letting the professors handle things, but once Dumbledore was sacked, I guess they didn't want to take any chances. And well, Susan's aunt, Amelia Bones, is the one in charge of the department, and they've been owling each other about this for a while now. Susan's aunt has been in contact with the school since the first attack."

Suddenly Susan's earlier attitude was making a lot more sense. She had probably known about all this far beforehand.

Before he could ask any more questions, Professor Sprout announced that it was time for them to start wrapping things up so that she could escort them to dinner.

Looking at Ernie straight in the eye, Harry tried to convey as much gratitude as he could. "Thanks, Ernie. Really, for everything."

The Hufflepuff boy grinned, albeit a little bit nervously. "It's alright Harry. Just make sure you take some pictures next time something happens alright?"

Harry snorted but grinned anyways as he turned to join the Gryffindors. Inwardly, he promised to do something better than just take a picture. Now, armed with the knowledge of what was at stake, Harry began to mentally prepare for what would almost assuredly be something that would have first-year Hermione in conniptions.

Breaking curfew.

* * *

Dinner was a sordid affair that day, in Harry's opinion. Looking around the Great Hall, Harry began to wonder just how many of the students there knew of the possibility of Hogwarts closing, how many didn't, and how many chose to be willfully ignorant of the machinations beyond the school. It was difficult to discern, among the bloodshot eyes and the frantic muttering to themselves, who were the ones in the know.

Not to mention, Luna seemed to be following his lead in looking around the Hall, except sometimes she would stop and talk about people as if she were commentating a Quidditch match. This lead to a distraction that really couldn't be ignored seeing as how the girl was right next to him. Her soft voice could be astoundingly attention-grabbing at times.

He ended up telling her of what Ernie told him not even an hour prior. He left out the parts pertaining to himself specifically, but whether or not Luna found it odd that one of the previously contempt Hufflepuffs decided to suddenly inform Harry of all this, she didn't say.

"That is very unfortunate," Luna said, shockingly at peace with the information. "I imagine the Figglenorfs will have to accompany some of the students home for next year's lodging."

"I think you're missing the point here," Harry stopped her before she started on another on of her creature spiels, "If Hogwarts closes down, what will happen to everyone else?"

"What will happen to _you_, you mean." Luna corrected, smiling serenely at his suddenly uncomfortable face. "It's alright, I know that's what you meant."

Harry imagined this must be what swallowing a lemon felt like.

"Well," the blonde girl said, "it's not like they can just ask every student if they're the Heir of Slytherin, even if it should be really obvious, because the Wizengamot would never allow that."

The Gryffindor boy ignored the part about the obviousness of Slytherin. She clearly didn't have a clue who the perpetrator was either. If he remembered Hermione's lecture correctly, the Wizengamot was one of the ruling bodies of the ministry and was in charge of several vital aspects of it.

"Why do you say that?" Harry asked, wondering as to the motives. He couldn't recall too much about what the Wizengamot did exactly.

"Because it would set a precedent," Luna explained, "Not to mention I imagine there'd be too much temptation to satisfy old grudges through the students. And the Wrawrmlesses would revolt if that ever happened."

If nothing else, at least Luna's animals gave him practice in verbalizing impossible sounds.

Still, the girl had a point. Disturbed as she was, she had very real point, because if there was something Harry had learned in his very short life, people could be vindictive and vicious when given the power and opportunity to see their goals through.

Sighing, Harry looked down at his food, and started picking at it. His appetite hadn't been the best the last few days, and this recent revelation was not helping matters.

"You don't seem to broken up about all of this," he observed, taking out _The Standard Book of Spells_ once more.

"I don't see how turning to jigsaw piec-"

"It was an expression," he said quickly, upon realizing his mistake with the strangely literal girl. "I just meant to say that you do not seem to be very worried about Hogwarts closing down."

The blonde girl shrugged. "True, I'm not worried. I expect that this will all be sorted out by the end of the semester anyway, and from then we'll see how it goes. I imagine Beauxbatons might be a good option if Hogwarts closes."

Harry frowned at the casual name drop in the conversation. "Beauxbatons?"

"It's a school somewhere in southern France," Luna elaborated as she put some more mashed potatoes on her plate. "They have an abnormal amount of Nargles in the winter, so that would be a good chance to observe their impact on a student population."

"People don't go to schools to learn about Nargles, Luna," Harry said half-heartedly. "Besides, aren't there any other schools nearby? France is a bit far."

"Not really," Luna shrugged. "Hogwarts has been so successful and welcome to students of all backgrounds that any dissenting schools have been hushed up by the Dingtro Plot."

The way she said it gave off the impression of it being the most normal thing in the world, but Harry wasn't put off by her view of the world too much. He managed to get the basic impression of what she meant.

"So you won't care if it really shuts down at all?" Harry asked, pressing the girl for an answer he could make sense of. "You'll just pack your trunk and go somewhere else?"

There seemed to be some hesitation, before Luna shrugged and looked up at the sky, a funny little smile on her face. "There isn't much here for me at Hogwarts, Harry. Nothing here that can't be found elsewhere."

Harry wanted to tell her that that was bollocks but found that the words kept dying in his mouth. There was just too much acceptance in her expression.

She looked down in front of him. Harry followed her gaze to notice she was staring at his book.

Slamming it shut just like at lunch, Harry glared at her, trying to convey his sudden displeasure with the girl. Something about her earlier comment rattled him, needled at that little piece of him that had accepted Hogwarts wholeheartedly as his home, as the one place in the world where he belonged. He felt insulted, on behalf of the school, and on behalf of Luna, who was clearly too crazy to understand what Hogwarts meant beyond being just a school.

The rest of dinner passed by in silence.

* * *

He was ready.

Time since dinner passed in a relatively uneventful affair. After being escorted to their Common Room, all the Gryffindors had split up and gone their separate ways to study, relax, or simply goof off with each other. The crimson covered room was filled with students of all ages, with the lower years playing Exploding Snap or singing along with the Wizarding Wireless music. Most of the upper years, instead, had shuffled off to the tables by the windows, stacks of books and papers piled high; they would be frantically writing things down on parchment, only to sometimes knock over their ink bottle and spend a few minutes cleaning it up with their wand.

Harry, however, had chosen to retire to the dorms. There he procured Neville's toad, Trevor, from his cage for some more practice with his Silencing Charm. Past a certain point of repeatedly silencing and unsilencing the amphibian, Harry had taken to trying the Slumbering Spell on the toad. Surprisingly, that spell had come to him a lot easier than the other one, so after only an hour and a half, Harry was now able to consistently put the toad to sleep whenever he wanted. Eventually, he had taken to skimming the rest of the book for anything of interest. Substantive Charm, Odor Masking Spell, the instructions on transfigurations of dog-sized creatures…nothing truly stood out among the rest.

Neville, Seamus, and Dean would occasionally pop by the room to pick something up and put something away, but every time Harry thought he even heard someone come up the stairs, he would go back to 'studying' on his four-poster bed with books and papers strewn about on top of his sheets. He wasn't feeling up to explaining why he was practicing magic on Neville's toad in the first place.

At one point, the three boys did indeed come back to retire for the night, forcing Harry to give up his secret practice and let Trevor go. He was glad nobody was looking at him when Neville had cried out that his pet had escaped again. Harry then spent the rest of the night, trying and failing to read his textbooks as he waited for the three other boys to go to sleep.

By the time that all four of them were well in bed, Harry included, and resting it was already twelve past eleven. Giving it a few minutes to make sure they were asleep, Harry waited for the telltale heavy breathing/snoring from his housemates. Soon as they were all snoozing, he eased himself out of bed, got a change of clothes and his dad's Invisibility Cloak from his trunk.

After liberally applying the Silencing charm to every article of clothing that he had, plus the cloak, Harry donned the cloak and went down the stairs to the Common Room. To his dismay, not that he wasn't expecting any different, there were still quite a few upper years around. Some had fallen asleep and others were still scribbling away on parchment about who knows what.

Idly, Harry wondered which of those two would be him in a few years.

Thankful that he had decided to apply the spells in his room instead of down there, he began walking towards the common room exit. About halfway through, the portrait had swung open, letting Percy Weasley in. Still beneath the cloak, Harry kept quiet as he observed the elder Weasley walk around the common room, looking at everyone's tired expression and scrambled schoolwork with a neutral expression.

The prefect didn't say anything; he merely observed everything, a piercing strength in his gaze. His eyes passed over Harry like he wasn't even there, but even so there was a hardness in them that told him to avoid getting on the teen's bad side in the near future. Ron's petrification had certainly done things to the older Gryffindor.

Eventually, Percy let loose a tired sighed. Then, he took off his prefect badge -something that Harry had only seen him do with great reluctance before. Following that, the sixth year redhead sat down on the sofa in front of the fireplace, and stared into the flames.

Making sure that no one was looking in his direction, Harry walked to the common room's exit, and took out his wand. He didn't know if this would work or not, but even if it didn't he had already decided he would chance it.

The Slumbering Spell that he had worked on earlier was a curious bit of magic that he had found while browsing textbooks for information. Technically, it didn't truly put the target to sleep, but more like a state of decreased perception. They would see the world as from the perspective of themselves falling asleep. From that, they would follow the natural impulse to go to sleep then.

The only problem was that this was a spell made to handle usually creatures of lower intelligence than a person. Harry would put it akin to magically-enhanced hypnosis (which Hermione would say was undoubtedly wrong), but the drawback was that a human being's higher functioning would not allow them to be tricked so easily like that. Violent sentient plants, volatile animals, and even the occasional uppity infant were usually the target of this spell.

Now, whether or not the portrait could be affected, Harry would see.

"_Quiescus,_" Harry whispered, pointing at the back of the portrait with his wand. A dark blue mist trickled from his wand to the portrait. The mist seemed to enter the back of the painting like water seeping through a crack in the floor. There was no outward response indicating that it had worked at first, but then he heard the beginning of a strange rhythmic wheezing. It took him only a second to realize it was the Fat Lady's light snoring.

He glanced back to make sure that the other students had noticed his little bit of sabotage. Everyone was still preoccupied with his or her own world of troubles. Turning back, Harry gently pushed the portrait open, and slid out, taking care not to alert any other vigilant pieces of art that he was leaving.

He'd never had to work this hard to leave past curfew, but then again, the school had never been so close to shutting down in his time there either, and back then the portraits never really gave a damn what students got up to in the wee hours of the morn. It was actually something of a wonder that the staff hadn't found out who was the Heir of Slytherin already. With all these security measures in place, it was amazing that anyone could even sneeze without something knowing.

Closing the portrait, and mumbling a quick "_Finite Incantatem," _to cancel the Slumbering Spell, Harry took a step back and waited for the Fat Lady to right herself out. She didn't waste much time, and soon returned to vigilant attention, mumbling something incoherently about a horrid catwoman.

Seeing as she was going to be fine, Harry started making his way down the castle. He took care not to make anymore noise than necessary, even if he had silenced everything up to his hair. There were a few ghosts patrolling the hallways, floating through and from doors and floors alike. Some portraits were sleeping, while others remained at vigil alert, probably awaiting their own shift. Even the suits of armor were doing something; many of them could be found at intersections or corners, still as statues, staring down entire hallways. It honestly gave Harry a few chills upon seeing them like that. The sight of them never really seemed truly frightening when they were positioned alongside the walls.

He continued his journey in peace though. Upon reaching the ground floor, Harry took a look at his watch, noting the time. At ten to midnight, he estimated he had about four to five hours before he should be in his bed. It was when he was passing by the hourglasses containing the House points that he noticed something clearly out of a fairy tale.

Luna Lovegood leaning against the Great Hall's doors, happily humming to herself as she used her wand to conduct an invisible and silent orchestra.

He stared for what felt like the longest time before he got control of himself and walked a little bit closer. What was she doing out of bed, he wondered. There was no way she could have gotten by all the patrols and security measures without alerting anyone. So what was she doing here?

Before he could even think to answer his own question, what happened next made him forget all about that.

"_Rip…. I will tear you piece by piece…. I am so very hungry…Let me eat you...Come….die for me…"_

That…had been close. Closer than ever before even.

Before Harry even knew what he was doing, he grabbed Luna and pulled her under the cloak. The act only elicited a small yelp from the blonde girl, but it was enough to send his heart racing even further.

"Harry Potter? Hello, what are you-"

"_Silencio!" _Harry said, pointing his wand at her face. "Luna, I'll explain later, but trust me and just stay _still_, alright?"

The Ravenclaw girl looked more surprised than usual, but nodded. Whether she was taken aback by his abrupt appearance, or his tone of voice, Harry did not know, nor did he care. What mattered now was whether or not she could tone down on all her Luna-ness for the sake of both their lives.

There came a rumbling sound from somewhere not too far off. Both of the Hogwarts students froze, neither of them suddenly breathing too loudly for fear of attracting its attention. Whatever _it_ was.

"_Find you….I will eat you…Join me…Die…I will kill!"_

Harry swore to himself silently, not believing his own luck. He had by now recognized the sound as Parseltongue, but he was damned if he was going to try and reason with the owner of that voice. He put his hand in front of Luna, and started pushing her back with him, away from the Great Hall's entrance, as quietly as they dared. If anything, being out in the open like that was only asking for trouble.

Another rumbling sound came, this time, definitely in the entrance chamber of the castle. It was coming from the direction of the dungeons. It sounded like large pieces of stone sliding on each other, much like one of the secret passageways. What followed was what seemed like something dragging itself across the floor.

'_But for us to hear it from here,' _Harry thought, his eyes fixed in the direction of the dungeons, _'That thing ought to be huge. Enormous even.'_

The thought did not settle well with him.

Harry pushed them further back into the shadows, breaking eye contact with the doors to the dungeons, just in time for the large door to open outwards. It did not bang, it did not smash, but simply swung open as if moved by human hands. This, somehow, made the thing that appeared all the more terrifying.

The two students did not get a good first look at the creature, busy scurrying ever further out of sight as they were. But they saw the beast's body slither out of the dungeon door, its body obscured by shadow, rising up high like a serpent poised to strike. They could not see the head of the monster, only the body, but that was more than enough for Harry to realize that his friends were very _very_ lucky to be alive.

The giant snake (for that was the only thing it could be), moved out of the dungeon doors, and began, circling the entrance chamber of Hogwarts. It passed by every single nook and cranny of the hall, moving to and fro in what Harry would chance to say was an almost giddy fashion.

"_Eat you I will….Kill you too….Perhaps….Not in that order…."_

Harry and Luna had moved behind one of the pillars around the Hall.

Suddenly, he felt Luna grab his arm in a vicegrip and shake it. Turning to her Harry saw a bloodless face and an all-too-familiar fear reflected back in her expression.

"It's a basilisk," she said hoarsely. Harry eyes widened. Since when had she…?

Raising his wand to her face one more time, he started, "_Silen_-"

"It can smell us," Luna said quickly, suddenly looking even more terrified at being Silenced. "It doesn't matter if it can't hear us or see us, it can find us by our scents!"

"_You are talking…talking too loud...food should die…where are you…"_

Harry turned around then to look at the creature one more time. Then, as if fulfilling Luna's abysmal prophecy, the creature began to sniff. It sounded much like a garden sprinkler, in Harry's opinion, but much larger, and far deadlier. The snake's movements began to get sharper, and by the sound of it, it was getting nearer. The speech kept deteriorating more and more into normal hissing, nonsense syllables filling Harry's ears.

The Gryffindor boy turned to Luna, his mind racing with ideas and all of them unfeasible. Running, hiding, fighting, nothing seemed to work in his head. He thought back to everything he knew, searching desperately in his memory for something that would help him, when suddenly a single word stood out in his mind; a single spell that he had dismissed as useless earlier that day.

"_Perdasenten!_" The Odor Masking Spell. Harry incanted it, believing and hoping with every fiber of his being that it would work. Not waiting to see if it had though, Harry quickly Silenced Luna's feet and grabbed her hand.

"Run!" He whispered.

Not looking back to see her expression, Harry began pulling her along, trying to cross to the far side of the chamber without alerting the monster to their movements. The beast was now inspecting the entrance doors, dangerously close to where the two of them had been hiding before. They passed by the rest of the giant snake's body was coiled up, and Harry felt an irrational and practically insane temptation reach out and touch the thing, to see if this nightmare was for real or not. He resisted of course, because only reality could be this terrifying.

They made it to the other side without any problems, their running not having drawn even a blip of notice from the monster. Now they had their backs pressed against the door that Harry heard led to the kitchens. He wondered that if the beast found them, would anyone from there show up to stop it?

Part of its head could now be seen from their position. Harry went to take a small step to the side and get a better look, to see what Hogwarts' boogeyman looked like, but Luna, stopped him. Looking at her, she shook her head vigorously, and instead mimed something by putting her hands over her eyes.

It could be said that Harry thought best when his life was in danger, because he understood the warning easily. Stepping back, Harry just observed the creature's body, paying extra attention to any sign of it turning to look their way. He was prepared to close his eyes if necessary, though the idea sounded as ridiculous as one of Luna's flights of fancy.

"_Where…..I will kill you….Come and die….Tear you…Rip…_" Came the –baslisks?- voice. Slow and methodical, it taunted Harry, as if knowing he could understand it. "_You are here…do not hide…die for me…where…where are you…"_

Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise up, as he saw the beast move to investigate their previous hiding spot. The malice in its voice was almost palpable.

"_Where are you….where are you….where are you…..WHERE ARE YOU…."_

The snake retracted from the corner, spitting and hissing up an evil storm. Harry saw the back of its head bob back and forth in the air, searching for them. "_Come to me! Die! I will kill you! You are mine!_"

He heard the Titan sniff the air, as if unsure of what it kept smelling. _"You do not run!...Rip and tear and crush and kill!…Death! Death to you!…._"

It was only thanks to some visceral instinct in his body and his Seeker fast reflexes that Harry managed to close his eyes. At the same time, he ended up putting his hand over Luna's who had been watching the same scene with just as much rapture as he. As soon as he did, Harry heard the ancient beasts body twist, and suddenly he knew that the creature was facing their direction now.

Silence fell. For a moment, Harry wondered if it had already left, until a sharp hiss with no many resounded throughout the room. "_Next time,_" the baslisk said, "_You will not run…. I have you... I know you now._"

A familiar sound reached Harry's ear, but still he did not open his eyes. It was that same rumbling from before, that had foreshadowed the beast's arrival. He could hear the gigantic serpent move once more, scales rubbing against the floor as it slithered away. The two of them remained where they were, waiting for forever to and an eternity for the beast to leave. Finally, after too long, the door to the dungeons closed with a heavy 'thunk' that was somehow muted in light of everything that had just happened.

Both of them remained still. Eventually Harry became aware of his own heart beat, loud and painful in his chest. As soon as he did, he leaned back against the wall, and slid down, with the Invisibility Cloak sliding off and all feeling lost in his legs. Beside him, still partially concealed by the cloak, Luna fell on her bottom.

Neither of them said a thing. The cool air of the castle now seemed freezing on his hot skin, and part of Harry longed to head back up to his room and take a nice long shower. That part though, was subsumed by the part that was playing catch-up with what just happened.

Slytherin's monster. The demon from the Chamber of Secrets. Anathema to muggleborns everywhere. When Harry had imagined a monster, he had been picturing something a bit large, with claws or extra limbs, maybe around Hagrid's size. Obviously snake-like to fit the House motif, but certainly not something like _that._

A stray thought grabbed his attention.

"How'd you know?" Harry asked, his voice dry but firm, "How'd you know it is a basilisk?"

Luna stared at him. She looked odd as she was, half-covered by the cloak, leaving only her head and everything from the right shoulder down visible. "I remembered that the people -the ones who were attacked- were petrified."

Her voice was calm and steady, but there was still that note recent fear in it. "When I saw the basilisk, I knew it was the monster. Slytherin's monster, I mean. And…I had to tell you. There's only one kind of snake that big that could do that." He could actually make sense of that. The girl had an absurd knack towards remembering her fantastical animals. He supposed that she would do the same for normal ones too.

It took him a second to realize that he had categorized a freaking' centuries old sixty something foot deadly snake as 'normal'. Oh, Uncle Vernon would have an aneurysm if he could see him now.

"How'd you break the Silencing Charm?" Harry asked tiredly, not even caring that she had. Suddenly everything seemed so small in comparison to the fact that they had survived. He was just asking to occupy his mind. It needed something to focus on.

The Ravenclaw girl shook her head. "You never cast it properly to begin with Harry. You were probably just too distracted to do that. The Wrackspurts had gotten to you by that point."

Harry stared, momentarily trying to figure out if this was some secret message that he was supposed to decipher. It didn't take long for him to give up and accept the sentence for what it was.

Still, if that had been the case then Harry figured he had just used up all the luck in his life right then. To have just the right spell go wrong, and then the one he'd never practiced go well…if he were gambling man, he would nail every lotto he could find.

"I…what….what were you doing here?" Harry managed to ask, his mental state akin to a hurricane. "Actually _how_ did you get here?"

"I had detention," Luna said simply, more of her natural airiness returning to her voice. "Professor Lockhart gave me detention today."

"What for?" Harry mumbled, wondering how on earth anyone managed to annoy the man enough to actually make him give a detention. All you had to do was call his name and the man would start rambling on about some supposed award he'd won or catastrophe he prevented. It probably took real talent to tick him off.

Talent that Luna apparently had. "I pointed out to Professor Lockhart that his story about the Wagga Wagga Werewolf didn't make any sense. Everyone knows that werewolves from that part of the world have…"

Harry just let the words wash over him. He was half-paying attention and half-looking around the entrance hall. He noticed that the suits of armor that usually stood on both sides of the main doors were missing, and that the few portraits decorating the place were sleeping.

That last fact did not really surprise him. Despite how tense the situation had been, Harry couldn't say the events were noisy enough to wake portraits from the legendary slumber. The most clamorous moment had been when the basilisk had started yelling, and even then, it probably just sounded like normal hissing to others.

Ah, Luna had stopped talking. He should probably be paying attention now.

"Why were you down here then?" Harry asked, truly curious now that his interest had been piqued. Lockhart's office was on the floor above, and the whole situation was too coincidental in his opinion. "Why were you singing, of all things?"

"Singing keeps me centered," she said simply. "When Mr. Filch came to pick me up he brought me here, instead. When I told him I sleep in Ravenclaw, he told me to find my own way back. He seemed to be acting a little odd and…" She paused for a moment, before she leaned forward and conspiratorially whispered, "I think he was Imperiused."

"What?" Harry said, sitting up straight at the word. He remembered some of the rumors surrounding him being the Heir had it involved somewhere. "Could you explain that last part?"

"Imperiused. It means being under the Imperius Curse." Well, he imagined that being in a state categorized by some magic-like name meant that he had been put under said spell.

By now klaxons were ringing in his head. Something was screaming at him that this was important. "And the Imperius Curse is…?" Harry said expectantly.

"Total control." Luna deadpanned, "Absolute and total power over someone. Minister Fudge uses it sometimes to keep his goblin chefs in line. It's…not a nice spell."

Yes, because a piece of magic labeled as a curse was definitely going to produce puppies and chocolate frogs.

Ignoring those thoughts, Harry thought on the matter, ignoring the implications of there being an actual mind-control spell in the magical world. Try as he might, the only thing Harry could think of was one word: setup. Where surveillance was at its weakest, and with Luna alone, she should just have been another name to mark off on Slytherin's list.

Something still didn't seem right though… "Luna, what's your blood status?" Harry asked suddenly, already knowing the answer before she even gave it. Hers was the sort of insanity that would warrant several visits to a psychiatrist in her childhood had she been a muggleborn. Plus, there was the matter of knowing Ginny prior to Hogwarts.

"I'm a mixed-blood," Luna said, head tilting to the side as she got up and looked down at him, "why, if I may ask?"

But Harry ignored that question. He now distinctly recalled the older boy, McLaggen, once bragging to other Gryffindors about his skill on a broom when he was younger. Not a muggleborn then either, he mentally noted.

And then there was the most egregious example: Ron Weasley. The boy was definitely pureblood. Maybe not rich or prestigious, but certainly pureblood. And Slytherin's monster was supposed to purge the school of muggleborns, not blood traitors! The stories only ever talked about muggleborns!

Harry swore right then. Right beside him, Luna blushed.

"Oh, I'm an idiot! The attacks are centered around me," Harry realized, looking at Luna as if seeing her for the first time in forever. "Their aimed to mess with me."

The Ravenclaw girl seemed to think about it, before she agreed. "Yes, I suppose they all seem to be, don't they?"

He shook his head, and stood up. Grabbing the cloak from Luna, Harry threw it over the two of them and began walking. Luna followed without being invited to, seeming to understand his intention. "No, those others were just flukes," he said, shaking his head as they went up the stairs. "I was just passing by when I ran into Justin and Nearly-Headless Nick. Same thing with Mrs. Norris." _'Bloody cat,'_ Harry thought uncharitably.

Nonetheless, thoughts of the feline couldn't ruin his good mood. It looked like he wouldn't have to go to Hagrid's Hut after all. It was possible that he was wrong, but Harry didn't think so. The Board of Governors apparently had it out for him after all

"I mean the last few attacks. Ron and Hermione. McLaggen. Now you." Harry said, his voice dropping to a whisper as they started walking the corridors of Hogwarts. Their clothes and shoes were still silenced, so they could walk at a faster pace than if they weren't, but now there were two people under the cloak, and Harry had to limit his speed so that one of them wasn't left showing bits of feet with nothing attached to them. "Ron and Hermione are my best friends. It would make sense for them to be targeted. And Cormac was a prat. I almost had a row with him in front of all of Gryffindor."

They turned around a corner, each of them staring at the suit of armor that was facing the direction they had come from.

"And me, Harry? Where do I fit in?"

The inevitable question. He almost didn't answer her, because even she could not be that oblivious, but there was nothing to gain by being rude with the girl.

"You've been spending time around me lately." Harry said. He somehow filled it with enough schoolboy awkwardness and enough nonchalance to devalue all they'd done so far in that single sentence. "I'm guessing that's why you were targeted tonight."

"It makes sense." Luna agreed easily, "So, where are we headed to?"

"_You're_ headed back to your dorm," the Gryffindor boy commanded. _'And I'm finding Professor McGonagall'_. "It is way too dangerous outside of it right now. You were already targeted once tonight. I'm not going to-"

"Do you know where the Ravenclaw Common Room is?"

"Err, no, but that's why I was going to ask you about that. You need to get to safety as soon as possible, and that's the best you'll get."

"Harry, what makes you think I will tell you where it is then?" Luna countered, and quite cheerfully too. A portrait on the wall on their right scowled and started looking in their direction. There was a tense moment or two of the expectation of being found out, but soon it passed. Those moments gave Harry enough time to formulate his counterargument to Luna's.

"There is no way in hell that I'm letting you come with me, Luna."

Never let it be said that Harry wasn't straight to the point.

"You have no idea where I live, there is a rather large basilisk roaming the school at night, and I can feel an itch on the back of my neck. Daddy said that when that happens I'm supposed to stay as close as possible to the nearest person I know or else the Cult of Fyfa would shave my hair."

Harry swore to do something nasty to Mr. Lovegood one day after this. Possibly involving laxatives and bug zappers.

Looking around, Harry noticed Moaning Myrtle's restroom was nearby. Grabbing the girl by the arm, he dragged her to the deserted area.

"You can't come with me, it's dangerous to be outside right now." He started.

"All the more reason for me to join then. There is a basilisk around the school."

"A basilisk that was targeting you earlier if I recall."

"It's okay," she failed to assure him, "I trust you. That's what friends do right?"

The word set him off.

"Luna…I'm not your friend, alright? Look," and here he took a deep breath, because even if it hurt the girls feelings, she had to hear the truth, if only to get her back to safety, "I like that you took the time out of your day to sit next to me, really, I do. It's nice to have someone sit next to me at meal times and stuff, and I'm honestly and totally sorry about whatever crap you go through with your own housemates that made sitting with _me_ the preferable option, but I can't just pretend to be friends with you if that's what you want.

"I think your animals are more fantasy than reality, your choice of accessories leave me wondering if you have any idea where socks go, I think the Quibbler is the laughingstock of the news media and that you're foolish and gullible to believe it, you are completely off your rocker for believing in all these stupid things that aren't real, and for letting everyone keep pushing you around, and you for just letting it all happen! So no, I don't think I'm your friend."

There was a moment of silence as Harry tried to calm himself. He hadn't yelled at all, but those last few sentences left him feeling a little raw under the skin.

"I'm sorry, Luna. I know you don't-"

"I know." Luna interrupted him. She looked exactly as before, the picture perfect expression of peaceful serenity. "I know, Harry. But none of that really stops me from being _your_ friend does it?"

A sledgehammer would have been a less painful blow.

"So, let's get going shall we?" With that said, Luna left the confines of the cloak and went to wait at the door.

Behind him, Harry heard a very sniffly, but distinctly feminine voice say, "Humph, and I thought you were nice." It was followed by the sound of toilet water splashing.

Harry rejoined Luna and covered her with the cloak once more. He was unable or unwilling to say anything in the wake of her revelation. Dumbly, he told her that they were going to find McGonagall to let her know everything they had found out about the monster…and about the Heir.

Because even in his haze, Harry recognized that the Heir of Slytherin acting in the interest of closing the school, or getting Harry in trouble, was not the symptom of one deigned to fulfill Salazar's dream. But it certainly was in the indicative of working in favor of a certain Board of Governors, vague as their goal may be.

All these thoughts and more though, halted when they came upon the still, and unmistakably dead body of Argus Filch at the bottom of the staircase to the first floor.

**End Chapter 4**

**Author Notes: Not a bad place to end this monster of a chapter, in my opinion.**

**Those who remember the old story already recognize the differences. Last time, I had Harry go out to Hagrid's hut, find a completely useless journal, and then get kidnapped by spiders. This time? Screw that. Let's shove them in a room with a basilisk instead.**

**Things are heating up now. Harry learning spells, the basilisk looking for dinner. The works.**

**I do hate the trope of having the protagonist learn their little powers after little to no effort on their part, but Harry is just damn tough to work with after picking up from the point in canon that I did. So, I gave him a bit of competence with some fifth year spells. Not nearly enough to work all the time, as clearly demonstrated here, but eh, it's better than before.**

**Ernie is a tool most of the time. He is portrayed as pompous and bossy in canon, and as an extension of that, I decided to have him call Harry out on a few things, because canon Harry has no idea how to handle some situations. Hmm, Hagrid said follow the spiders? Okay, let's leave the castle and go out to the Forbidden Forest so we can learn more about the Heir of Slytherin. Nevermind that a teacher probably could have helped with that, they could also possibly have put the information to use somehow.**

**Also, don't you just love how the attacks are nothing but petrified, even though the basilisk only has to look at you to kill you? Luck aside, there really isn't any reason to leave petrified victims lying around, still otherwise intact. Then again, Voldemort always has been a showboat. But I like to believe there is a method behind his madness. Otherwise we've just got your boring standard megalomaniacal villain who has a lot of big spammable guns.**

**And Harry, being an ass. Have to love that. Or not. Your pick really. Much as I enjoy Luna, there is something very _wrong_ about the girl.**


End file.
